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REAL CHILDREN 

IN 

MANY LANDS 


A series of visits through the 
stereoscope y guided by 


Mf 


EMERY 


Author of When We Were Little^ 
How to Enjoy Pictures, etc. 

NEW EDITION 
REVISED AND ENLARGED 



UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD 

New York and London 



rZo 


1^3 


Copyright, igi4 

By underwood & UNDERWOOD 
New York and London 
(entered at stationers’ hall) 

Stereographs copyrighted in the United States 
and foreign countries 

A ll rights reserved 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 




©C1.A361756 


It 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Making Ready 5 

POSITIONS TO BE TAKEN 

1 Italy. — P easant children on the steps of a temple at 

Rome 9 

2 Switzerland. — S wiss hamlet near eternal snows; Saas 

Fee, the Fee glacier and Alphubel 17 

3 France. — T he paradise of French children; on the sea- 

beach at Trouville 27 

4 Spain. — L ittle neighbors “building houses” on play- 

ground near cathedral; Burgos 33 

5 Portugal. — T he square and column of Dom Pedro 

IV, and theatre of Dona Maria; Lisbon 38 

6 Ireland. — E rin’s little sons and daughters; a country 

school in County Monaghan 42 

7 England. — T he river Teme and charming green coun- 

try around Ludlow 52 

8 Holland. — B eside the Zuyder Zee; Dutch villagers on 

fishermen’s wharf. Volendam 58 

9 Germany. — S toried Castles of the Brothers at Bom- 

hofen on the Rhine 67 

10 Denmark. — F un for boys and girls on their favorite 

playground. Copenhagen 79 

11 Norway. — C hildren at play in a farmer’s field before 

Tvinde waterfall, near Vossevangen 86 

12 Sweden. — ^A n old well, vine-shaded porch, and little 

folks at home. Lerdal 96 

13 Russia. — M onument of Catharine II and Alexander 

Theatre. St. Petersburg 103 

14 Austria. — A n Austrian hamlet; Val Ampezzo 114 

15 Greece. — I n Sparta; villagers and countrymen on a 

market day I2i 

16 Turkey. — ^T urkish boys feeding pigeons in the court 

of Bayezid mosque. Constantinople 126 


17 

i8 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Palestine. — Little folks at their lessons in the village 


school at Ramah 131 

East Africa. — P icking coffee in Moschi province 137 

India. — C hildren are children the world around; hop- 
scotch in Cashmere 141 

Burma. — S choolboys and their priestly teacher having 

lessons beside the Irrawaddy 147 

China. — M ission children with one little American girl. 

Canton 158 

Korea. — G ranite lion before gateway to the old royal 

palace. Seoul 166 

Japan. — S choolhouse and grounds with little folks at 
play. Yokohama 171 

Tasmania. — C hristmas holiday pleasures at the Fern 

Tree bower, near Hobart 183 

New Zealand. — I n Nature’s bathtub where hot water 

never fails; Maoris at Whakarewarewa 187 

Ecuador._ — H ome life with the family of a wealthy 

Spanish citizen. Guayaquil 190 

Peru. — S elling ponchos, ice-cream and vegetables at a 

market; Cerro de Pasco 194 

Panama. — P ounding rice; native life at a village in the 

interior of the isthmus 198 

Porto Rico. — ^Y oung banana plants; growing prospects 

of a home near Mayaguez 202 

Mexico^ — A B C in Spanish; flowers, birds and little 

folks at a primary school. Jalapa 206 

Canada. — C osy Canadian homes on the Beauport road 21 1 

Greenland. — T he world’s most unique inhabitants — 

Esquimaux and their tents 217 

Arizona. — M oki Indians and their strange homes be- 
side the Dance Rock. Wolpi 228 

North Carolina. — A humble but happy negro home, 

away down south in Dixie 234 

New Jersey. — T he snow fort and its gallant defenders 239 

New York. — D ancing around the May-pole at a school 

festival in a park. New York City 244 


MAKING READY 


It is a strange way in which we are going to 
see real children in other lands. 

Have you ever talked with a person through a 
telephone? When you did that, you could not 
see your friend at all; he was a long way off on 
another street, perhaps in another town. You 
were in one place; your friend was in another 
place; and yet you heard your friend’s own voice 
plainly. You felt that you had been close to- 
gether. 

The stereoscope that we are to use for our 
travel around the world does something as won- 
derful, in its own way, as the telephone. 

You really stay where you are, in America or 
England, or wherever you may be. The children 
of other lands stay in those lands. But when you 
put a stereograph in the rack and look through 
the lenses of the stereoscope, you see the children 
just as clearly and plainly as if they were close by. 
You can feel that you are beside them in a far- 
away land. 

When you use the telephone, you cannot see 
people but you can talk with them. When you 
use the stereoscope, you cannot talk with people 
but you can see them! 

Would you like to know why it is that this par- 


6 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


ticular kind of photograph is so different from a 
common picture? 

The two prints that you find placed side by side 
on the cardboard mount look alike but they are 
not just alike. The glass negatives ” for them 
were taken at the same instant by two different 
lenses set side by side in a ''stereoscopic” camera. 
A stereoscopic camera is one that acts like your 
two eyes, while an ordinary camera acts like one 
eye. 

Have you ever noticed that your two eyes do 
not see exactly alike? The right eye sees more 
of the right side of things that are near by. The 
left eye sees more of the left side of things. 

Just try an experiment for yourself. 

Hold your right arm straight out at full length, 
directly in front of you. Shut up your right eye 
and look with your left eye at the extended hand. 
You will see the edge of the hand and a part of 
the palm. 

Now keep the arm in exactly the same position, 
but close the left eye and look with the right. 
You will see not just what you saw before, but 
the edge of your hand and a part of the back of 
the hand. 

Keep the arm as before, and look with both 
eyes at once. You will see the edge of the hand 
and part of the palm and part of the back of the 
hand too. So, when you look with both eyes, you 
see part-way around things that are near you. 

When the photographer set up his stereoscopic 
camera before a group of children, the two lenses 


MAKING READY 


7 


side by side took in exactly what your two eyes 
would take in if you were standing there in place 
of the camera. 

Notice that the stereoscopic lenses themselves 
are not plain, flat glass; they are purposely set 
at an angle with the direction in which you face. 
The result is, that, w'hen you look through the 
lenses at the stereograph, you see not two groups 
of children but one group ; and the children stand 
out real and solid, just as if you were near enough 
to speak to them. 

There are five things you should remember to 
do when you are going to travel with the help of 
the stereoscope. These are the five things : 

1. After you put a stereograph in the rack, try 
experiments, pushing the rack nearer your eyes 
or farther away from your eyes, until you find 
the spot where it should be to show everything 
clear and plain, just like life. Different people 
often need to place the rack differently because 
some are more near-sighted or far-sighted than 
others. 

2. Be sure to have a strong, steady light fall- 
ing on the face of the stereograph. Do not stand 
so that the face of the stereograph is in the 
shadow. The best plan of all is to sit or stand 
so that a strong light from a window or a lamp 
falls over one shoulder on the face of the stereo- 
graph. 

3. Hold the stereoscope with the hood close up 
to your face, the edge touching your forehead. 


8 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


4. Whenever this book asks you to hunt up a 
place on a map in your geography, be sure you 
do it. You will find it is good fun to discover the 
very spot where the Esquimau children are camp- 
ing, and where the Burmese boys go to school. 

5. Do not hurry. Take plenty of time to see 
each child and to read everything that is told here 
about the children in that particular land. Notice 
all the little things, and see what you can discover 
that your guide does not mention. 

The second time you visit a certain group of 
children, you will probably see a good niany 
things that at first you did not notice at all. 

If you wish to see more of the countries where 
these children live, or of real, live children in still 
other countries, different from these, the pub- 
lishers of this guide-book can give you a chance 
to travel still more widely around the world. 

Now let us be off for our first visit through the 
stereoscope. 


FRIENDS THAT WAIT TO SEE YOU 
IN ROME 


There is an old proverb which says ‘‘All roads 
lead to Rome.” It is to Rome that you are bound 
now, for there a little brother and sister are sit- 
ting on some stone steps, waiting for you. 

If you do not remember exactly where Rome 
is, just look for a minute at a map of Europe and 
find the place near the western shores of Italy on 
a small river. 

X. Position in Italy, Peasant children on the steps 
of the Temple of Vesta, Pome 

As you stand here, you are surrounded on all 
sides by the streets and buildings of the city. 
Rome is a place almost as large as Boston or 
Baltimore. 

This brother and sister are real, live children. 
They work and study and play. They have their 
friends and their fun and their troubles, just as 
you have yours. 

You see them here in the beautiful old city of 
Rome, for they are Italians. If you could speak 
to that little maid who looks at you now so shyly 
from under her soft, dark hair, you and she would 
both be puzzled for a while, for she could not un- 


10 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

derstand your English at all ; but you should hear 
her chattering in Italian to her industrious elder 
sister or to the big brother there beside her on the 
steps! She would think your English words so 
funny, and wonder why you had never been 
taught to say Grazie (“ thanks ”) as she does, or 
to explain — Non capisco (“ I don’t understand ”). 

See how many differences there are between 
these Italian clothes and yours. Artists think these 
Italian clothes much prettier than the clothes 
worn in America. These sisters do not care for 
hats. Very often they go bareheaded; often they 
put on what you see now — a gay-colored cap of 
woven silk or a pretty white one that can be 
washed and ironed. The little one is very proud 
of that bright-hued ’kerchief crossed over her 
breast and tucked into the belt of her apron. Be 
sure you notice her brother’s shoes with the long 
straps wound about his ankles and legs. How 
different his hat and jacket are from those of 
American or English boys. 

Not all Italian children dress like this. Some 
wear clothes almost exactly like yours. The boy 
wears the odd jacket and shoes partly because he 
likes them and partly because artists like to sketch 
them, they are so pretty. 

Do you see what the big sister is doing all this 
time? Her fingers are never still for a minute — 
she often knits as she is going on errands and 
many pairs of stockings grow into shape during 
odd minutes like this while she is resting from a 
long walk. 


Position 1. 


FRIENDS THAT WAIT IN ROME 


II 


And what do you suppose is this place where 
she and the children are sitting? 

In the town where you live, at home, there is 
probably some house that is older than the other 
houses — one that was built many years ago. So 
the city of Rome has its old buildings; but they 
are very old indeed — much older than anything 
we have anywhere in America. Notice the stone 
steps and the great stone pillars behind the chil- 
dren's sister. They are part of a temple where 
prayers were said to strange heathen gods long 
before Columbus had discovered our America, 
even before any white men knew there was such a 
land as America on earth; in fact, it was an old, 
old temple far back in the days when Christ was 
born. St. Peter may have seen these very col- 
umns when he came to Rome almost nineteen 
hundred years ago. 

The little sister does not know much about old 
Roman history, for she has been in school only a 
year or so, but the brother goes to school with 
boys all tall and old like himself, and the school- 
master in his room reads to them the most inter- 
esting, exciting stories about old times here in 
Italy and about brave men who lived and worked 
for Italy. The boys in his class write out the 
stories afterwards and copy them into exercise 
books for the master to read and correct. 

Some years ago an Italian man, who had been 
a schoolboy just like this boy here, wrote a book 
all about the work and the fun that one has when 
he is ten or twelve years old. Boys and girls in 


Position 1. 


12 real children IN MANY LANDS 

Italy are as fond of that book as American chil- 
dren are of “ Little Men and Little Women.” 
You may have a chance to read it sometime for 
yourself, even without knowing Italian, for it has 
been translated and printed in English. The name 
of the book is “ Cuore,” — the diary of an Italian 
schoolboy. 

The boys and girls are in separate classrooms 
in school. When they are little, and are just be- 
ginning to read and write, they all have women 
teachers, but the older boys are taught by men. 
They carry their books in bags or in leather straps 
just as you do at home. The small girl is learning 
to read and to write, and to do easy, plain sewing; 
she can sing and she and the other girls of her 
age will soon begin to draw. When they are 
older, the teacher will take them now and then 
into picture-galleries to see some of the most 
beautiful paintings in the world — many of the 
greatest artists who ever lived have been Italians, 
and their country has a good right to be proud of 
them. Americans make long journeys to Italy 
just for the sake of seeing the beautiful pictures 
painted by Italian artists long ago and treasured 
now in churches and palaces and art museums. 

Many artists from other countries come to 
Rome to study. More than once this very boy 
and girl have stood quite still half an hour at a 
time, so that an art student might make sketches 
of their bright faces and quaint clothes. They 
often earn money in this way, and every penny 
helps, for there is not any money to spare at home. 


Position 1. 


FRIENDS THAT WAIT IN ROME 


13 


When they are romping with their friends, these 
boys and girls play many of the very same games 
you play yourself. If you were with them you 
could join in the fun, though you could not under- 
stand each other. What they call ‘‘ Blind Cat,” 
you know as Blindman’s-buff.” They mark on 
the ground the very same lines that you know for 
“ Hop Scotch,” and the place at the end shaped 
like a semicircle, which American children call 
“ Heaven,” they call '' Paradiso ” (Paradise), 
which means exactly the same thing. 

Sometimes they play Open the Gates,” which 
is almost the same as our “ London Bridge is Fall- 
ing Down.” Another game they like is played in 
this way: — All but two of the children join hands 
and form a circle — they are bunches of grapes on 
a grape vine. One girl is the owner of the grapes, 
the other is a robber. The robber comes near and 
walks around the circle and the owner says (in 
Italian) : — 

'‘What are you doing in my vineyard?” 

“ Stealing grapes.” 

“ Why do you steal them? ” 

“ Because they are good.” 

“ What would you do if I chased you ? ” 

“ Seize a bunch and run ! ” 

Then the robber takes some one girl out of the 
circle, and they two run as fast as possible to get 
away before the owner can catch them. The game 
is for the robber to try to get all the grapes away 
without being caught. 

A favorite trick among girls here is to shout 


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1. 


FRIENDS THAT WAIT IN ROME IS 

almost the same thing that we call hasty pud- 
ding of corn meal, and it is delicious when you 
are hungry from your work or play; so is minestra, 
a thick soup made of fresh vegetables. 

There are a great many holidays for young 
folks here in Rome, and some special fun for each 
one; they look forward to Christmas just as you 
do. The shops are full of things for holiday gifts 
— playthings, jewelry, gay ribbons and handker- 
chiefs, candies and cakes and nuts and fruit; there 
are street peddlers too with baskets full of pretty 
things or funny things, and crowds of people are 
out buying presents. There is one particularly 
delicious Christmas candy made of honey and al- 
monds — they call it torone, and another called pan- 
giallo which has all sorts of goodies in it — sugar, 
citron, almonds, pistachio-nuts; Italian children 
think it is the best candy in the world, and per- 
haps they are right. 

The churches have specially beautiful music at 
Christmas time and in many of them there are 
figures representing the Christ Child lying in the 
manger — a dimpled baby put there to remind 
everybody of the Holy One who came to the 
Mother in Bethlehem. 

Presents are given, not on Christmas Day but 
at Twelfth Night, January 6th, the anniversary 
of the time when the Wise Men brought their 
gifts to the Christ Child. This brother and sister 
understand very well that it is their father and 
mother and big sister who put presents in their 
stockings at Twelfth Night, but very little Italians 


Position 1. 


l6 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

sometimes believe it is an old woman called Be- 
fana, who goes about from house to house like 
our Kriss Kringle or Santa Claus. 

Then, after Christmas, work begins once more. 
There are holidays and short vacations scattered 
through the winter and spring, and about the first 
of July come the final examinations at school, 
when the children who take good rank are 
promoted to higher classes for the next year. A 
good many little Italians are fine scholars; we do 
not realize it until their parents bring them over 
to live in America and they become Americans 
themselves. It seems particularly right that they 
should come to America and help make the coun- 
try, because, you remember, it was one of their 
own people, Columbus, who first told the rest of 
the world about this *land of America that might 
be used for the homes of white men. 

Only a little while ago a high-school teacher in 
one of our American cities told me that in a school 
of six hundred, where most of the boys were Amer- 
ican-born, the boy who did the best work in Eng- 
lish was a bright young Italian, whose people had 
come here only a few years before. 

All three of these Italians may come themselves 
to America some day — ^who can tell? Perhaps 
you may even know them sometime. They can 
tell you a great deal more about their old life in 
Rome, and you can tell them how you once saw 
them sitting on the steps of the old temple. 


Position 1« 


AWAY UP AMONG THE MOUN- 
TAINS OF SWITZERLAND 

Almost in the middle of Europe, between Ger- 
many on the north and Italy on the south, is a 
land where children live all surrounded by won- 
derful sights. Find Switzerland on your map. 
See how it is covered by mountains. Notice how 
some of the great rivers of Europe begin among 
those mountains. It is away up in a valley, be- 
tween tall mountain peaks which reach far into 
the open sky, that you will find the little Swiss 
people. 

2, Position in Switzerland* Swiss hamlet near the 
eternal snows — Saas Fee, the Fee Glacier and 
the Alphuhel 

How many persons are there in sight? Look 
carefully, for there are some you will not notice 
at all at the first glance. 

The children live close by, in a wooden house 
like those you see on the right. People do not 
paint their houses here, but the sun and wind stain 
the boards with pretty browns and grays — colors 
almost like those of the great rocks in mountain 
pastures. Artists like to make pictures of them. 

Is it summer or winter? Yes, the deep grass in 
a 


l8 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

which the little folks are wading shows that it 
must be summer; see, it reaches almost to the 
boy’s knees. And yet at the same time you find 
those mountains beyond the house-roofs white 
with snow. That mass of white which looks some- 
thing like a great snowbank, on the steep hill be- 
yond the church, is solid ice. Look sharply and 
you will see that brooks are running down from 
its lower edge, where the ice is melting during 
warm weather, but it never wholly melts. In the 
hottest days of summer there are always great, 
glittering sheets of ice and snow up there on the 
heights above the village. 

Isn’t it a strange place in which to live? 

If you could talk with these children, you would 
find they do not think it strange at all, for they 
were born here and they have never been any- 
where else. A big level prairie or a city with 
paved and crowded streets — that they would think 
very strange; but they are used to seeing ice and 
blooming flowers side by side and they think very 
little about it. 

Where do you suppose the grandmother is 
going with that plump baby on her strong back? 
If she had a pail or a basket she might be going 
to pick wild strawberries in some pasture on the 
mountain-side; but I do not see any baskets — do 
you? All the hills around here are steep. Just 
see how steep they are over beyond the church! 
It would be too hard work for that little fellow’s 
short, fat legs to climb such a pasture, though be- 
fore long he will be as strong as the rest of the 


Position 2. 


UP AMONG THE SWISS MOUNTAINS 


19 


children. If you were to ask them where they are 
going you would probably have to speak German. 
There is no “ Swiss '' language; in some parts of 
the country people speak German, in some parts 
French, in other places Italian, and in a few places 
a curious language called Romansch. In large 
towns boys and girls often learn to speak two or 
three languages. These little folks probably do 
not understand English very well, though they 
may have learned a few words from travelers who 
come to stay in those hotels during the summer. 
(You can easily guess which buildings are the 
hotels.) Guests in those houses are often glad to 
buy wild flowers and strawberries. 

The children like to go to the hotels now and 
then, just to peep at the strange people and to 
earn a few pennies, but they like their own homes 
best. If you were to go inside one of these brown 
houses you would find that the windows open like 
doors; they do not slide up and down like most 
windows in the United States. The floors are of 
bare wood and there is not much furniture. There 
is a cupboard for dishes and space is found in a 
closet or two for putting away the bedding and 
the children’s Sunday clothes. The stove in the 
living-room is large and a part of the partition 
wall between two rooms is cut out so that the 
stove may stand partly in one room and partly in 
the next room, giving heat to both in cold weather. 
What do you think they burn in the stove ? Look 
sharply at the corner of the house, outside, and 
you can tell for yourself. Had you noticed that it 


Position 2. 


20 real children in many lands 

is washing day? Somebody’s mother — maybe the 
mother of these very boys and girls — has been 
making things clean and sweet, ready to fold away 
in the clothes cupboard. 

The grass in this field will be cut presently and 
dried in the sun, then stored away for the winter 
food of the cows and goats. Look again and find a 
building where there are big doors leading to a 
hay-loft. How do the men reach the doors in the 
second story? Sometimes these children sleep on 
the hay in such a loft. It is clean and quite soft, 
and how good it does smell ! The cows and goats 
stay in winter in basement stables down under the 
houses; there all will be warm and dry even when 
the snowdrifts out here in this field may be higher 
than grandmother’s head. 

Now, while the air is warm and the grass is 
growing, the animals are kept out of doors in a 
pasture above the village with some older children 
to watch them and see that they do not stray off 
too far among the high rocks. When this boy is 
just a little bigger, so that he can be trusted not 
to get into dangerous places himself, he will prob- 
ably spend long summer days far up above the vil- 
lage near the edge of the snows. He will take a 
luncheon of bread and cheese with him and stay 
till it is time for the sun to set. Then he will sing 
a song that all the cows know, to call them to- 
gether. Some of the jodels or cow-calls have Ger- 
man words; some have no real words at all, but 
only sounds like Yo-a-lo-ol-li-ho! This is one of 
the prettiest jodels y and a boy feels very grand 


Position 2. 


UP AMONG THE SWISS MOUNTAINS 


21 


when he can send it ringing out, clear and strong, 
over the heights and hollows of a mountain pas- 
ture : — 



When the cows hear the call, they will remem- 
ber it is time to go home and come trooping to- 
gether; then he will drive them down here to be 
milked by the mother and the grandmother. 

Possibly that oldest girl has learned to help 
about the milking. I am sure she has learned to 
knit; the thick stockings that she and the younger 
ones wear in winter are all knit by the girls and 
grown-up women. The grandmother here even 
knows how to spin yarn from sheep’s wool and 
when she was young she knew how to weave 
woolen and cotton stuff to make clothes for a 
family, but now they do not do so much weaving 
in homes hereabouts ; they buy their cloth ready- 
woven. 

The children like to have grandmother tell 
them stories about when she was a little girl. In 


Position 2. 


22 real children IN MANY LANDS 

those days there were bears in the woods over 
beyond that big hotel, and wild goats used to 
scamper about on the steep high rocks away up 
there by the glacier or ice-field. Now the real 
bears are all gone, but the children often play 
they are still here, and sometimes the boy tries 
to tease the little sister by growling as if he were 
one of the big furry beasts, but she knows better ! 

Grandmother knows some beautiful German 
songs, to sing to the very, very little ones at bed- 
time. If the words were put into English, one 
song would be like this : — 

“ Sleep, baby, sleep ! 

Thy father tends the sheep. 

Thy mother shakes the dreamland tree, 

And down falls a wee little dream for thee ; 

Sleep, baby, sleep! 

‘‘ Sleep, baby, sleep ! 

In heaven roam the sheep. 

The stars they are the lambs so small, 

The moon it is the shepherd tall ; 

Sleep, baby, sleep ! ’’ 

When they are seven years old, all the boys and 
girls here in Saas Fee begin to go to school. 
They read a good many Bible stories, and stories 
of men and women in old times; when they can 
read quite well they have interesting stories about 
their own beautiful country. 

One story which they learn is about a Swiss 
hero named Wilhelm Tell. The story-books say 
he lived six hundred years ago in the village of 


Poiitlon 2. 


UP AMONG THE SWISS MOUNTAINS 23 

Altdorf, about forty miles from here, straight be- 
hind you. 

Switzerland was then ruled by Austrian officers 
who were very hard and unjust. One Austrian 
bailiff, named Gessler, lived in Altdorf, and put 
on silly airs of great importance ; he even went so 
far as to have one of his own hats set up on a 
pole in the village green and made all the people 
bow to it as they passed by ! 

This was too much. Wilhelm Tell declared he 
would do no such thing. Gessler had him arrested, 
and tried to think what could be done to punish 
him. 

Now Tell was a famous hunter with bow-and- 
arrow. Gessler remembered this, and he thought 
of a plan to injure him as much as possible. He 
called the people together on the village green. 
He made Tell’s little son stand a long way off at 
one side, with an apple on his head, and the father 
was told he must shoot the apple with his arrow. 
Fancy how terrified his friends were, lest he 
should be the means of killing his own boy ! But 
the arrow went straight to its mark and never 
touched a hair of the little son. 

Then Gessler said Tell should end his days in 
prison. They tied his hands together, and started 
in a boat to cross a long lake on the way to prison. 
A storm came up, and the boat was driven near a 
dangerous rock on the shore; Tell seized his 
chance, leaped ashore and escaped. Then he called 
together his best friends, and they vowed that 
Switzerland should be set free from the Austrians. 

It took years of fighting to win perfect freedom, 
but it was really done at last, and now for a long 
time Switzerland has been a republic, where all 
the grown men vote and every man helps govern 
his own country. 


Position 2. 


24 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

But it will be some time before these boys are 
old enough to vote, for they are still in school. 
The boys have gymnastics and the girls learn sew- 
ing. Thy all learn to write, too, and they have 
arithmetic lessons, so that they may make no 
foolish mistakes in business when they grow up. 

In summer time they play a game very like “ I 
spy.” One who is It shuts his eyes, and the rest 
hide. Then he goes about hunting for them and 
as soon as he sees one of the hidden players he 
runs to tag the goal, shouting Ein, swei, drei, fUr 
mich (“ One, two, three, for me ”). 

If there were daisies growing in this field, as 
likely as not those girls would be pulling the 
petals and counting them off to learn their for- 
tune. Sometimes they count by threes : — “ Single 
— marry — go into a convent; single — marry — go 
into a convent.” (That church whose steeple you 
see teaches the Catholic faith, and a good many 
grown-up women do become nuns.) Sometimes 
they count the petals off in this way: — “Noble- 
man, beggar-man, farmer, soldier, student, em- 
peror, king, gentleman.” 

Boys do not care so much about the daisy for- 
tunes. They would rather practice wrestling with 
each other. 

Another game which all the children play to- 
gether is great fun because everybody takes the 
part of some animal. One is It and blinds his 
eyes. The others come up one by one and tell 
their names. 

“ I am a bear.” 


Position 3. 


UP AMONG THE SWISS MOUNTAINS 


25 


'' Bear, you may go over by the wood-pile.*' 

I am a cow.’* 

“ You may go down in the corner of the field.” 

I am a dog.” 

“ Go Stand under the window of Frieda’s house.” 

“ I am a cat.” 

You may stand at the end of the path,” and 
so on, till all have been sent to different places 
by the blindfolded one. Then when all are in place 
he calls, Supper is ready ! ” Instantly they all 
begin to run back to where he stands, each one 
making a noise like the animal he chose ; the bear 
growls, the cow moos, the dog barks, the cat 
mews, and all try to reach the goal quickly for 
the last arrival has to be It next time. 

In winter there is great fun for these boys and 
girls. The snow lies deep over these fields and 
fences and during hard storms and when the wind 
blows furious and cold, of course everybody is 
glad to stay inside the warm house. Sometimes 
snowdrifts reach away up till they partly cover 
the windows downstairs. There are plenty of 
things to do indoors; many of the village boys 
learn to carve paper cutters and little boxes and 
other trinkets out of wood to sell the next sum- 
mer; the girls have their knitting and sewing and 
some of them learn to make lace. 

When a winter storm has cleared off cold and 
the sunshine is sparkling all over the ground and 
the roofs, then the children bring out their sleds 
and have fine times sliding over the crusty snow, 
down such hills as are not too steep to be safe. 


Poritlon 2 . 


26 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


Grown up men have long, curved strips of wood 
(skis they are called), shaped like sleigh-runners 
and strapped to their feet, and with these they 
can travel long distances over snow that is too 
soft to allow anybody to walk in ordinary boots. 
The boy here is not yet quite old enough for skis, 
but he will probably own a pair by and by. 

When these girls are large enough they will 
very likely find work at one of the hotels during 
the summer and be able to put a bit of money in 
the bank. The boys too will find many things to 
do for summer travelers, and they will learn a 
good deal about the great world outside this little 
valley. Maybe that little fellow in the big hat may 
turn out a fine scholar and go away to one of the 
great universities to study more than can be 
learned in country schools. 

One of the most famous naturalists and most 
helpful teachers in America was a man named 
Louis Agassiz, who had been a boy in Switzerland. 
One of the things that made him famous was his 
study of the great glaciers on the Swiss moun- 
tains. When he saw a great mass of ice, like that 
one which you see now over across the valley, he 
thought about it; he watched it; he climbed over 
it; he studied it in every sort of way, until he 
found out a great many interesting and important 
things about glaciers, all of which you will learn 
some day in your own school. 


Position 2. 


MIDSUMMER FUN ON A FRENCH 
SEA- BEACH 


All American boys and girls know the flag of the 
United States. A great 
many know a song about 
the Red, White and Blue, 
our national colors. But 
do you know that another 
country besides America 
has the same three colors in its flag? They are ar- 
ranged not like ours, but in stripes, — this way. It 
is the flag of France. 

Everybody knows where France is. If you look 
for it on your map of Europe and find a place on 
its northern seashore quite near the mouth of the 
river Seine, you know the spot where we are to find 
some French children having a fine time digging in 
the sand. 







'T3 

(U 

s 




3, Position in France, The paradise of French 
children; playing on the heach at Trouville 

You have often seen on maps the water between 
France and England colored differently from the 
land and marked '' English Channel.’' This is the 
way it looks when you stand on the clean, sandy 


28 real children in many lands 

beach at Trouville. Off at our left the rippling blue- 
green sea reaches for miles and miles, till at last 
the sky curves down to meet it. Off at our right — 
not in sight as we stand now — there are hotels and 
gardens and the pretty summer homes of rich men 
from Paris and Bordeaux and Lyons. Those lit- 
tle round tents are used by bathers for dressing and 
undressing, or by grandfathers and grandmothers 
who like to sit quietly in their shade, watching the 
fun. The canvas sides can be taken off, leaving 
only an umbrella shaped roof at the top of a stout 
pole ; or, as we see, even the top may be folded like 
a parasol. 

The swimmers far out in deep water are nearly 
all grown-up people, but six or seven boys have 
taken off their shoes and stockings and rolled their 
trousers as high as possible, so as to wade in and 
let the waves splash around their legs. 

Out here on the sand at the edge of the water, 
wells are being dug and forts are being built in the 
clean gray sand. That little girl with the spade may 
be surprised in another moment. As likely as not 
the very next wave will sweep farther in-shore than 
any of the others, fill the hollow she has made, and 
lap her ankles with a tongue of white foam. And 
how she will squeal and scream ! 

In the afternoon mothers or nurses or governesses 
often take the children out to the casino at the end 
of that long steel pier, to hear a band concert. The 
pier reaches so far out into the water, that when 
you are at its end you feel almost as if you were on 
an island. Steamers call there every day bringing 


P«9itloa 3. 


MIDSUMMER FUN ON A FRENCH SEA-BEACH 29 


people from Havre, a city ten miles away at the 
mouth of the river Seine, or carrying people to 
Havre when they are going home at the end of their 
seashore vacation. At Havre one can board a rail- 
way train for Paris or board another steamer and 
cross the channel waters to England. 

Sometimes these boys and girls bring playthings 
down here on the beach. Very little ones like to 
press sand into tin dishes of different shapes. 
Lovely dolls are often brought out on the beach or 
wheeled along the board walk in their carriages. 
French toy shops are famous for their dolls and for 
all sorts of dainty things that a doll can use — tiny 
gloves and parasols; wee writing desks with paper 
and envelopes an inch long; jeweled fans and combs 
and hairpins and bracelets; wee purses and hand- 
kerchiefs and traveling bags; you can hardly think 
of a thing which is not obtainable for a French doll. 

Sometimes these boys and girls together play 
Cache-cache; that is what we call Hide-and-seek. 
They have a Wolf game too that everybody knows. 
One child is the wolf and stands at a little distance 
from the others while they march around singing 

Promenons nous dans le bois, 

Pendant que le loup n’y est pas. 

That means 

‘‘ Let’s go walking in the woods 
While the wolf is not around.” 

Position J. 


30 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


• » 


Protaetuons nous daiu U 



r r ' r 







m 

• 


• ® « 




« 




b 


e.ncla*nt c^ue le loup eat paa. 


Then they stop marching and one of the children 
calls : — 

Loup, viens tu? (‘‘Wolf, are you coming?'') 
The wolf replies : — 

Non; Je me leve. (“ No; I am getting up.") 

Then they all sing and march as before. Another 
pause and another child calls: — 

Loup, viens tuf (“ Wolf, are you coming? ") 
The wolf replies : — 

Non, Je m'habille. (“No, I am dressing.") 

Then they sing again about the walk in the woods. 
They ask several times if the wolf is coming, and he 
says he is eating breakfast or he is reading the news- 
paper, or something like that. At last, he cries Je 
viens (“I am coming"); and at that word the 


Position 3 . 


MIDSUMMER FUN ON A FRENCH SEA-BEACH 31 


players scatter, running as fast as their legs can 
carry them. The one caught has to be Wolf next 
time. 

When these boys and girls are at home, some of 
them go to public schools, but a great many of them 
have tutors or governesses at the house. They learn 
interesting stories from French history by listening 
while the stories are slowly read aloud, and writing 
down in an exercise book what they hear. Many of 
their favorite stories are about a French country 
girl named Jeanne d'Arc (we call her “ Joan of 
Arc ”) and how she rode on horseback, leading an 
army of French soldiers into battles. She helped 
them win the battles too, and saved the king of 
France from bitter enemies. French children know 
about Joan of Arc and her victories, just as Ameri- 
can children know about George Washington and 
about the Declaration of Independence. 

There are quantities of delightful story-books in 
French; no doubt some of them were packed in the 
family trunks when they came here, to be ready for 
a possible rainy day. Nearly all the nicest fairy 
tales which you yourself know were first written in 
French or have been translated into French. These 
playmates know all about Cinderella and Puss-in- 
boots and Aladdin with the wonderful lamp. They 
have read the adventures, of Robinson Crusoe, and 
most of them know still another fine story called 
The Swiss Family Robinson.’' That tells how a 
whole family of people were shipwrecked on a lonely 
island, how they built a house up in a tree, how they 
tamed the wild animals, and how they discovered 


Position 3. 


32 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


all sorts of curious and delicious things to eat. The 
story has been translated into English and very 
likely you may know it yourself. 

Some of our American story-books have been 
translated into French so that the little folks of 
Paris and Rouen and Marseilles may enjoy them 
too. If you have read ‘‘ Little Women ” and “ The 
Story of a Bad Boy,” you can imagine what a good 
time French boys and girls must have reading the 
same funny chapters. Very likely they say to their 
mothers, ‘‘ How strange it is, to think that Ameri- 
can children have lessons and games like ours, away 
over at the other side of the ocean ! ” 


Position 3. 


PLAY-HOUSES IN SPAIN 


In our large American cities children often have 
schoolmates who were born in other parts of the 
world. Some boys’ fathers have come to the United 
States from Germany, some from Ireland, some 
from Italy or Russia or Sweden. It is not often 
that the father of a family moves to the United 
States from Spain. If we want to see Spanish chil- 
dren at play we must see them in their home coun- 
try. And Spain is nearer to us than almost any 
other part of Europe, as you can see for yourself 
if you look at a map of the world. If a steamship 
should sail straight east across the Atlantic from 
Boston, the first land the passengers would sight is 
part of the coast of Spain. In northern Spain there 
is a city called Burgos. Travelers from other lands 
often go there to see a great stone church that is 
famous for its beauty. We will go there too; for 
more than a dozen little people of Burgos are mak- 
ing play-houses on a hillside near the church, and 
they will let us look on. 

4 . Position in Spain, Little neighbors building 
houses on their playground near the 
cathedral at Burgos 

We do not see much of the town. Most of its 
houses and shops are farther to our right and left, 
below this hill. The streets are narrow and not 


3 


34 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

many of the houses have gardens large enough for 
a dozen boys and girls to play together. Up here 
on this hill they may do as they please and make 
as much noise as they like, without disturbing the 
affairs of grown folks or being in anybody’s way. 

How many children do you see? Small boys in 
Spain wear very long unbelted blouses reaching be- 
low their knees, but you will not mistake them for 
girls if you notice their cloth caps. Most likely you 
too have played at making houses. The best way. 
is to use small stones as they have done here at Bur- 
gos, to mark the outside of the house, leaving an 
opening for the door; then, if you have plenty of 
time and plenty of stones, you can divide the house 
into rooms, leaving door-spaces so that anybody 
may walk from one room into another without step- 
ping over a partition wall. Very dikely some of 
these girls may have brought along their dolls to 
spend the morning in the play-houses. If anybody 
has been allowed to bring from home something to 
eat, that is the best fun of all, for the lucky one 
can invite his friends to a party in one of the houses. 

These Spanish children know ever so many games 
like the ones you and your friends play. One of 
them is “ Blind Hen.” Yes, you play that yourself, 
only you call it Blind Man’s Buff. Two girls often 
play “ Tintarello ” together. They stand face to 
face holding each other’s hands, plant their feet 
close together, stand on their toes, and whirl around 
and around like a top until one girl or the other is 
dizzy and screams that she has had enough. Boys 
and girls both are delighted with seesaws or teeter- 


Posltioa 4. 


PLAY-HOUSES IN SPAIN 


35 


boards, balanced over a big stone or a wooden 
bench. 

A very funny sort of dance is often done by 
Spanish youngsters. Try it. You stoop until you 
can clasp your hands behind your knees; then you 
hop about, singing the grasshopper song. The 
Spanish words are particularly pretty, but this is 
the same rhyme put into English: — 

“ Grasshopper sent me an invitation 
To come and share his occupation. 
Grasshopper dear, how could I say no? 
Grasshopper, grasshopper, here I go ! ” * 

When these Burgos boys are a little older, they 
will play bull-fight with the other boys on their 
street. One boy pretends to be a ferocious bull and 
the others prance around, shouting at him, waving 
flags or rags at him, or pricking and punching him 
with long sticks so that he may get angry and chase 
them. Sometimes the “ bull ” is the best runner 
and the other boys are caught; then they have to 
pretend that they are killed or badly wounded by 
the bull’s sharp horns. Sometimes the bull ” is 
a slow-moving boy and the others keep him busy 
for a long time running and leaping and plunging, 
trying either to escape them or to throw them down. 
It is a rough, exciting game, and Spanish boys en- 
joy it as much as Americans enjoy football or base- 
ball. 

As these girls grow older they will have most 

* Taken from “ Spanish Highways and Byways,” by Kath- 
arine Lee Bates ; copyright by the Macmillan Company. 


Pofitloa 4. 


36 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

of their own good times in connection with the 
church where they go for prayers. That cathedral, 
whose stone towers were made so beautiful by the 
builders, is far more grand and splendid inside than 
our churches in America. It is a Catholic church. 
Almost everybody in Spain is brought up to be a 
Catholic. Several times during the year there are 
processions and parades in honor of Jesus Christ, 
or of His mother Mary, or of some saint — a good 
man or a good woman who died long ago after liv- 
ing a noble and helpful life. In such processions 
little girls walk two-by-two, dressed in white dresses 
and white veils and carrying flowers or lighted can- 
dles. On Christmas morning, everybody gets up 
long before daylight to go to church. It is cold 
weather then. The ground is almost always cov- 
ered with snow at that time of year and it takes 
courage to pull yourself out of a warm bed to go 
out of doors; but when one is actually up and out, 
with the stars twinkling all over the sky and the 
church bells ringing and all the neighbors going to 
church too, it is pleasant to have a part in the cele- 
bration of Jesus’ birthday. Inside the big dark 
church hundreds of candles twinkle like the stars 
in the sky, and near one of the altars is a represen- 
tation of the baby Christ, — a wax image of a baby 
lying on a bed of straw, with oxen and donkeys and 
sheep standing around, just as if it were the real 
stable in Bethlehem, except that everything is 
smaller. 

It is not until Twelfth Night (the flfth of Janu- 
ary), that these Spanish boys and girls have pres- 


Position 4. 


PLAY-HOUSES IN SPAIN 


37 


ents. Twelfth Night is the anniversary ot the time 
when the Wise Men brought presents to the Child 
Jesus. When the children go to bed they leave their 
shoes where the Magi can fill them, and the next 
morning they have the same kind of fun that Ameri- 
cans have in emptying stockings after a visit from 
Santa Claus. 

The schools here in Burgos are not very good. 
Fathers and mothers with plenty of money send 
their children to some convent for lessons. Other 
fathers and mothers do not always think about the 
need of any lessons, and their little folks have most 
of the time for play. That is all very delightful 
for a while, but the result is that, when it is time to 
go to work, neither the boys nor the girls know how 
to do anything that is worth good wages. They 
work hard but they get very little pay for their 
work. So Burgos homes are not nearly as com- 
fortable and pretty as American homes. People do 
not have half so many new clothes as your own 
neighbors have. Books and pictures, bicycles and 
automobiles can be afforded by only a very, very 
few wealthy Spaniards; the boys and girls of other 
families would open their eyes wide at the thought 
of such expensive pleasures, and would think that 
in America people must be as rich as the King of 
Spain. 


Position 4 


GOING ON ERRANDS IN 
PORTUGAL 


Portugal is a country where nobody likes to 
hurry. Perhaps you never heard of such a thing 
as taking an hour to go on an errand to a place on 
the next street, but there are Portuguese boys who 
often do it. If we should go, almost any fine day, 
through a certain square in the city of Lisbon, we 
should be likely to find several such leisurely mes- 
sengers standing around, watching the passers-by 
and forgetting that they have any errands at all. 

5, Position in Portugal. Square and column of 
Pom, Pedro IV; Lisbon 

It certainly is a pleasant place. The water in 
the fountain basin always feels good and cool, no 
matter how hot the sunshine may be as it lies on 
that curious pavement. The ground is really quite 
smooth and level, though the odd arrangement of 
dark-colored and light-colored paving stones makes 
it look (at the first glance), as if it were all in 
waves like the edge of a pond. 

See: — one of these boys has a big basket, two 
have bundles, one has parcels in his arms and a bag 
slung over his shoulder. Perhaps the others are 
out just for play. Or they may be on their way 
home from school — it is near noon-time. 

(How do we know it is near noon? Look at the 


GOING ON ERRANDS IN PORTUGAL 


39 


shadow of that tall boy at the left ; it is just a blot 
of shadow close to his feet, and that shows us the 
sun must be very high up in the sky, as it is about 
noon. In the morning or toward night, when the 
sun is nearer the horizon, people’s shadows spread 
farther out over the ground.) 

The Portuguese language which Lisbon people 
speak is a good deal like Spanish, yet not the same. 
It is not far from here to Spain (your map of 
Europe will show you how far) and Spanish busi- 
ness men have shops and offices here. Some of 
these boys may have heard a little English spoken 
by American or British travelers who come to visit 
Lisbon, but they would not be able to read any of 
your own books. 

Not every father in Lisbon can afford to send 
his boys to school at all. Lessons are not free; 
money has to be paid for the teaching and the books 
and pencils and paper, so if there is only a little 
money in the family a boy may have to go to work 
long before he has had a chance to learn much and 
to make himself worth good wages. Other boys 
are luckier. Their lessons are paid for and they 
may be able even to go to a University or to a scien- 
tific school. 

One never has to wait long in this square before 
something interesting happens. Perhaps a band 
will play and a company of soldiers will go march- 
ing past. Perhaps the President of Portugal, who 
lives in Lisbon, will go riding by. Portugal used 
to have kings; it is a statue of a Portuguese king 
that stands on the tall white column. But now the 


Position 5. 


40 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

fathers of these boys vote for a President, as fathers 
do in our own land. 

It is only a short walk from this fountain in 
the square to the bank of a great river where ships 
lie at anchor and sailors shout to each other and 
freight-handlers are at work on the wharves. Any 
map which shows Lisbon in the western part of 
Portugal will show the river and tell you its name. 
Ever since there was a town here on this ground a 
great many Portuguese boys and men have liked 
boats better than anything else and have chosen to 
be sailors. In old times, when most people in 
Europe knew very little about any other part of 
the earth, Portuguese sea captains were among the 
first to go sailing far away on voyages of discovery. 
One of those old captains, named Vasco da Gama, 
was the first European to find out that it was pos- 
sible to steer a ship so far southward as to come to 
the end of Africa and so get around to the Indian 
Ocean and the lands of India and China. Of course 
everybody knows now that it can be done, but it 
took courage to start out with a small sailing ves- 
sel, not really knowing that one would find a way. 
Then other Portuguese captains made the voyage 
around Africa to India, bringing home shiploads 
of spices and perfumes, silks and gold and jewels; 
and for a time Lisbon here was one of the richest 
cities in the world. Today there are not many new 
lands left to be discovered, but plenty of Portuguese 
boys go off every year as sailors, and though they 
seldom get rich they earn a living and see a good 
deal of other parts of the world. 


Position 5. 


GOING ON ERRANDS IN PORTUGAL 


41 


The sisters of these boys do not play out of doors 
as much as girls do in the United States. Most 
Portuguese mothers teach their daughters at home 
or send them to some convent school where they 
are taught to have pretty manners as well as to read 
and write, to sew and to sing and to play the piano. 
Sometimes the nuns help girls to get up plays, learn- 
ing the different parts and then inviting their 
mothers and aunts and girl cousins to the show.’' 
Girls often have things to do at church which they 
enjoy; they help decorate it with flowers and they 
walk in processions, all dressed in white, carrying 
flowers or lighted candles in their hands, in memory 
of Jesus and His mother Mary. 

One of the greatest days in the life of Portuguese 
boys and girls is the time when they first go to a 
Communion service in their own church. They 
have studied their catechism and learned it well. 
They have made new resolutions to be good — never 
to be cross again, never to do anything selfish or 
mean or wicked. They go to church, dressed in 
fresh, new clothes, to pray to the same loving God 
who cares for boys and girls everywhere; and the 
priest prays too, that a blessing may rest upon them 
all the days of their lives. 


Position 5. 


“GREEN GROW THE RUSHES-O” 
A GAME IN IRELAND 

It is easy to find Ireland on a map. Everybody 
has heard of the country; a great many people 
have friends and neighbors who used to live in 
Ireland. Many American and English boys and 
girls have little cousins living in Ireland now. 

There are fine Irish towns like Dublin and Cork, 
with wide, paved streets and beautiful houses, and 
shops full of pretty things. In other parts of Ire- 
land there are great stone castles with parks all 
around them, tall trees and green lawns and gay 
flower-beds. And, besides these, there are a great 
many little country villages where people live in 
small cottages and have not much money to spend. 

If you were to ride through Ireland you would 
see a great many villages and scattered farm- 
houses; once in a while you would pass by a 
country school house and hear through the open 
door the sound of children’s voices reciting their 
lessons. Or, if you went by at just the right time, 
you might find games going on at recess. 

Look on your map of Ireland and see what it 
tells you about the distance from one place to 
another. A certain space on a printed map always 
means a certain distance you would have to walk 
or ride if you were on the actual ground. Some- 


A GAME IN IRELAND 


43 


times an inch of paper means ten miles; some- 
times it may mean a hundred miles or even more. 
See how your own map was planned. 

Find Dublin on its bay in the eastern coast of 
Ireland. Now we are going to look for our coun- 
try school in a little village about seventy-five 
miles northwest of Dublin. The village is named 
Ballydian; it is not important enough to be put 
down in your geography, but if you measure off 
on the printed paper a distance that means sev- 
enty-five miles, northwest from Dublin, that is 
near where Ballydian really stands. 


6, Position in Ireland, Prints little sons and 
daughters at a country school in County 
Monaghan 

How many girls can you see? How many 
boys? Are there any boys in the ring? Are 
there any girls Who are not playing? Look at 
the children's faces and see how much they look 
like boys and girls that you have played with in 
your own school-yard. Do the girls in your school 
wear aprons like these? 

The game is “Green Grow the Rushes — O"; 
do you know it? The children began with only 
one child in the middle of the ring and the others 
danced round and round her, taking hold of hands 
and singing: 

“ Green grow the rushes — O! 

Green grow the rushes — O ! 


44 real children in many lands 

She who will my true-love be, 

Come and stand by the side of me.” 

Then the one in the centre chose another girl. 

In the city schools children are put in classes 
with those of their own age and size, but here at 
Ballydian the school is not large, so big and little 
girls sit in the same room. That tall girl at the 
left who looks so nice and neat often helps the 
teacher with the very smallest children, after her 
own lessons are learned. Do you notice that even 
now she holds the hand of the very littlest girl of 
all? It may be she is trying to be particularly 
friendly to the girl with the ragged dress; an older 
girl like her can do a great deal to help the others. 
No doubt she could teach the untidy child to mend 
her clothes and brush her hair neatly so that she 
would be much sweeter to see. 

The boys of this school are usually running 
races or wrestling or doing something of that sort 
at recess time, but to-day they are practicing some 
of their gymnastic exercises with dumb-bells and 
rods. Maybe they are getting ready for some 
special drill and exhibition, and need extra prac- 
tice. 

That is the teacher standing by the door. She 
has a great many lessons to hear every day. Some 
of the scholars are just beginning to learn to read 
and spell. Some have First Readers; see if you 
can pick out the boys and girls in the First Reader. 
Some are in the Second Reader. Some have not 
gone beyond addition and subtraction in the Arith- 


Position 6. 


A GAME IN IRELAND 


45 


metic. Some are working very hard to learn the 
multiplication tables. What table do you suppose 
they think the hardest? The tall girl in the plaid 
waist and some of those boys can probably do 
quite hard problems in the higher arithmetic. 

All the older boys and girls study geography. 
Probably all of them have heard of America and 
know of people who have gone to live in America. 

Besides all these lessons the children study a 
catechism and learn stories about Christ and His 
Apostles. 

Isn’t it a wee small school-house? Inside there 
are wooden benches where the children sit to do 
their studying. Those little windows do not let 
in very much light. The walls are of stone, with 
plaster spread over them on the outside, and the 
floor is stone also. The roof is covered with thin 
slabs of slate-stone much like the slates on which 
they write their spelling lessons and do their arith- 
metic examples. 

Have you noticed the sign on the wall above 
the teacher’s head? It says Ballydian National 
Schopl; a “ national ” school here in Ireland means 
a public school to which anybody may go. 

Sometimes these girls play other games — all 
sorts of old familiar games like tag and hop- 
scotch and I-spy or hide-and-seek. They like 
dolls, too, and sometimes they play keeping-house 
in nice shady places under those trees; but the 
teacher would hardly like to have dolls carried 
into school. 

The boys are fond of tops and marbles. They 


PiOftition 6. 


46 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

often play leap-frog and they are pretty good at 
simple ball-games, but they have not learned how 
to play a regular game of baseball. 

A good many of these children live near enough 
to the school-house so that they can run home at 
noon for their dinner of bread-and-milk or pota- 
toes or nice, sweet stir-about of oatmeal. Stir- 
about is a good deal like what Americans call 
corn-mush or “ hasty pudding.” Some of the 
children bring a luncheon with them and eat it 
during the noon-hour, sitting on the grass here 
or up on that shady bank beside the school-house. 
If they stay here through the noon they have some 
time left to look for flowers or to search in the 
grass for four-leaved shamrocks. 

Do you know the shamrock ? Every Irish child 
knows it well; it is a little plant growing close to 
the ground like clover and it has green leaves 
that grow in three parts very much like clover 
leaves. Once in a while — once in a very great 
while — if you hunt and hunt and hunt, you may 
find a shamrock with four leaves instead of three, 
and that is considered very lucky. The boy or 
girl who does find one usually presses it carefully 
between the leaves of his arithmetic or his geog- 
raphy. A very good way to press a shamrock is 
to put it inside one of your school-books and then 
sit on the book while you are studying some other 
lesson. 

There are guessing games that children play 
here when they are staying through the noon. 
Sometimes they tell riddles. I am sure this big- 


Pofltlon 6. 


A GAME IN IRELAND 


47 


gest girl would know a great many riddles. One 
favorite is : — 

“ Londonderry 
Cork 
and 
Kerry, 

Spell that without a K.” 

Can you do it? 

The houses where these little folks live when 
they go home at night are one-story cottages not 
much bigger than this school-house. They too 
have walls of stone, but most of them have roofs 
covered with long bundles of straw tied down 
with rope, very close and tight, side by side, to 
keep out the rain. 

The house door at home is cut in two across 
the middle, so that the lower half and the upper 
half swing on separate sets of hinges. That is 
very convenient on many accounts. If you fasten 
the lower half of such a door and leave the upper 
half open it is just like having a big window to 
let in tbe air and the sunshine. Besides, almost 
everybody around here keeps a pig and a goat, 
and the animals are so sociable they would walk 
right into the house if an ordinary kind of door 
were left open. 

All these children have some work to do at 
home to help their mothers. Sometimes they 
sweep the stone floor. Sometimes they wash the 
dishes. Often they feed the chickens or go watch 
the pig or the goat while it feeds on grass beside 


Potitloil 6. 


48 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

the road. Those are mischievous creatures and 
cannot be trusted to eat the wayside grass with- 
out somebody to watch them. If they were left 
alone they would be sure to stray off and get lost, 
or else they would go into somebody's field and 
eat the nice growing vegetables, and then there 
would be dreadful trouble with the angry neigh- 
bors! 

Goat’s milk is very nice with bread or with stir- 
about. 

These boys have also work to do. Some of 
them go with their fathers into the fields to hoe 
the potatoes and weed the turnips and cabbages. 
Everybody here has small fields and raises such 
vegetables. Some of the boys go with the grown- 
up men into the bogs to cut turf. 

Do you know what turf is? 

They sometimes call it peat.” It is a sort of 
spongy, earthy stuff, cut with long-handled spades 
out of the ground in damp places called bogs, and 
it is really the decayed remains of old trees and 
bushes and ferns and rushes and grass that used 
to grow in the bogs long ago. It looks almost 
like dirt, and it does have some dirt mixed with 
it; but, when brick-shaped pieces are cut out and 
dried well in the sun and wind, they can be burned 
like wood or coal. Everybody in this part of Ire- 
land burns turf at home, because wood and coal 
are very scarce and expensive. 

It is not burned in stoves. Most of these chil- 
dren have never seen a stove in all their lives. 
Their mothers at home have open fire-places and 


Position 6. 


A GAME IN IRELAND 


49 


the lumps of peat are burned there in plain sight, 
making red coals which are very pretty to watch 
if you are sitting on a low stool beside the fire. 

The work these boys like best is harnessing a 
donkey to a two-wheeled cart and driving to the 
nearest market on a Saturday, with a load of cab- 
bages and potatoes and eggs or maybe some nice 
little pigs to sell. Any boy alive would enjoy 
driving a comical little long-eared donkey. Then 
there is the fun of meeting a great many other 
boys and seeing all sorts of people in town. The 
shops and the streets and the crowds of people 
buying and selling make market-day a great occa- 
sion — yes, indeed! 

Sunday morning everybody goes to church, and 
Sunday afternoons there is a chance to visit cousins 
or go to walk with one’s best friend. These par- 
ticular little folks do not have any very nice clothes 
to wear; their fathers and mothers work hard to 
earn money enough to pay for the shoes worn out 
by growing boys and girls. But they are con- 
tented and happy and very fond of home. 

They all love to dance; there are no dancing 
schools in a country place like this but the big 
ones teach the little ones. Sometimes they are 
allowed to go to a neighbor’s house in the even- 
ing and look on while a fiddler plays and the 
grown-up people go through all sorts of pretty 
steps and funny jigs. They too mean to learn all 
the steps and be fine dancers themselves by and by. 

If one girl dances more gracefully than the rest, 
people say ‘‘ it was the fairies taught her.” 


Position 6. 


50 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

Some people think that the fairies have tiny 
golden harps on which they play, making the most 
beautiful music. You never hear it in the day- 
time in a place like this, but if you were to go into 
the woods on a midsummer night and creep very 
quietly among the trees, and listen very carefully 
when the leaves stop rustling, you might perhaps 
be able to hear it. I never knew anybody who had 
really heard a fairy harp, but they say it makes 
the most beautiful sound you can possibly fancy — 
a little like the wind among tree branches, and a 
little like sleigh-bells away off in the distance, 
something like birds singing in an apple-tree, and 
a good deal like a brook tumbling over stones in 
a shady place w’here ferns grow. Do you think 
you would know a fairy harp now, if you should 
hear one? 

These little girls believe that when the sun rises 
of an Easter morning it dances out there on the 
very edge of the world, because it is so happy. 
And some of them have been told that if a girl 
gets up before sunrise on May Day morning and 
runs out in the fields and washes her face in the 
dew, all the rest of the year she will look as pretty 
as a rose. The fact is that any girl who is neat 
and clean and has a sunshiny, sweet temper, is 
always one of the very nicest things in the whole, 
great world. 

Without much doubt some of those boys will 
live in America when they are grown up. Every 
year young men and young women, too, leave the 
farms about here and ride on a railroad train 


Position 6. 


A GAME IN IRELAND 


5 


cither to Londonderry, north of here, or to Cork, 
away down in southern Ireland, where ocean 
steamers call at the wharves to take them far 
over the sea. Some of the brightest and most 
hard-working boys and girls in American public 
schools went there from Ireland. Some of the 
bravest soldiers in the United States army to-day 
were once Irish lads in country schools, just like 
the boys you see here now with the dumb-bells. 

There is in a good many of our public libraries a 
delightful story about a large family of children in 
Ireland. It is called ‘‘ Castle Blair.’' The brothers 
and sisters who lived at Castle Blair belonged to 
rich people, and lived in a very grand house, with 
servants to look after them, but they and the vil- 
lage children were the best of friends. The book 
tells all about the fun they had, and the dreadful, 
dreadful scrapes into which they fell, and the way 
in which the troubles were finally straightened 
out. Things did come out right in the end, for, 
though the children at Castle Blair were pretty 
bad at times, their badness was only because they 
were too young to understand some things that 
perplex older people too. But they were always 
unselfish and truthful and brave, and children of 
that kind are just the ones this old world needs 
to keep it going. 


Position 0. 


COUNTRY HOLIDAYS IN ENGLAND 

What is the best part of country England in 
which to be a boy? Nobody can say. There are so 
many beautiful places, where young folks spend 
long happy days out of doors, it would be impossi- 
ble to choose. But there are boys in Shropshire 
who think the region around their home at Lud- 
low is the best part of the whole country. The 
geographies used in United States schools may not 
show the town of Ludlow, but it is near the east- 
ern border of the part of Great Britain called Wales. 
Birmingham is marked on every map of England, 
because that great, noisy, smoky city is full of busy 
mills and factories. The place we are to visit is 
about forty miles west of Birmingham, where a 
river comes rippling down among wooded hills and 
passes under an old stone bridge on its way to join 
the Severn. 

7 . Position in England. The reiver Teme and 
charming gvee^i country around Ludlow 

There could hardly be a better place for boys who 
like out-of-door games and sports. Thousands of 
English lads about this age are enrolled as Boy 
Scouts, learning how to march and drill, how to 
salute the flag, how to salute their officers, how 
to pitch tents and to build camp-fires and to cook 


COUNTRY HOLIDAYS IN ENGLAND 


53 


camp dinners. There were Boy Scouts in England 
long before we had that kind of fun in the States. 
And it is not only when Scouts are on the march 
that hills are climbed and woods are explored. 
Without a doubt these chums could tell us pre- 
cisely where in the woods to look for chestnuts in 
the fall; where foxes have holes in the hillsides; 
where the swimming is best in the river; where fish 
are most likely to bite. 

Probably all these boys know how to ride bicy- 
cles. English highways are well built and well 
kept, and wheels are used here even more generally 
than on our own highways. Motorcycles are com- 
mon too, but those are not often bought except for 
grown men. Everybody is interested in motor cars 
(automobiles). These schoolmates know some of 
the cars that are familiar to us at home and others 
which are brought into England from France and 
Italy. 

It is not likely that Ludlow boys ever saw a good 
game of baseball, but — spare your pity! They play 
cricket, and no game could be better, not even our 
national sport. Boys no older than these are am- 
bitious to become first rate cricket players. They 
go to see all the games that are played anywhere 
near home and they read newspaper reports of the 
doings of famous cricket experts. They know each 
great record, both of amateurs and of professionals, 
and they think they can tell beforehand the chances 
of victory in any important match. 

Football is, if possible, even more popular in Eng- 
land than in the United States. Schoolboys like 


Pocltloa 7. 


54 real children in many lands 

these play it after a fashion. Their older brothers 
play it better. University men play it too; though 
if any of these boys ever becomes a University man 
he may care more about the boat races of his col- 
lege crew than about any other sport. 

One of the favorite games for boys the age of 
these before us now, is Hare-and-hounds. Very 
likely you may know it yourself. It is a particu- 
larly exciting combination of tag and hide-and-seek, 
which keeps you chasing for hours through the 
town streets, across fields, up and down hills and 
through the woods, until the ‘‘ hounds ” catch the 
hare. All the way they must follow his long, 
crooked trail which he has marked by dropping 
scraps of paper. 

Only a small part of the town where these friends 
live is now in sight. Ludlow streets are narrow and 
most of the houses are built of stone. Many homes 
have pleasant gardens surrounded by high walls 
or hedges — jolly places in which to play before one 
is old enough to go about as he likes. You can 
see one garden quite plainly, and imagine what fun 
it would be for a small boy to sit on that high wall 
with a rod and line, waiting for a fish to nibble 
down there in the clear waters of the river. The 
games little people play in a place like that are often 
the same games that you and your neighbors play. 
They use some of the same rhymes that you know 
for counting-out ” in a game of tag. They know 
Blindman’s buff and Puss-wants-a-corner and 
London bridge is falling down ” — of course they 
do ! For a great many of our most popular games 


Pofltlon 7. 


COUNTRY HOLIDAYS IN ENGLAND 55 

were English long before they were American; and 
London bridge is standing today over the Thames 
— a broad stone bridge much longer and stronger 
than the one you see down there ahead which 
makes a roadway over the Teme. 

Some young Britons have tutors who come to 
their homes every morning. Some go to schools 
supported by the Government; some have lessons 
at the house of a village clergyman ; some are sent 
away to boarding schools, where they prepare for 
examinations at the universities or scientific schools. 
There are a great many interesting stories about 
life at English schools and the most famous of all 
is one that American boys often read — Tom 
Brown at Rugby.” The school of that story is only 
about sixty miles from here. 

English girls have a generous share in out-of- 
door fun. They take long walks and bicycle rides. 
Some of them are fine croquet and tennis players. 
They enjoy fishing as well as their brothers do, and 
they are usually quite as much interested in keeping 
dogs and rabbits and pigeons. If a girl’s father can 
give her a pony cart or a saddle horse she is sure 
to spend long, delightful hours riding over pleasant 
country roads that wind in and out, around and 
over the green hills, past fields and orchards and 
gardens, villages and cosy farmhouses. 

Every English mother has tea with bread-and- 
butter or tea with cake in the afternoon, and if 
friends come to call the tea-drinking becomes still 
pleasanter. Sometimes afternoon tea is served in 
the house, sometimes in the garden, where there are 


Position 7. 


56 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

seats and a tea-table. A girl enjoys helping to 
serve the family and the visitors and she learns how 
to be a graceful and courteous hostess when her own 
playmates come to her birthday party. 

English brothers and sisters do not often go to 
the same schools — at least, not after they are quite 
small and young. A great rhany mothers have the 
girls’ lessons all given at home, under a governess 
who lives with the family or under teachers who 
come to the house every day. Very often there 
is a good school for girls at the home of some neigh- 
bor, a woman who has studied at one of the great 
universities and who is at the same time wise and 
delightful. There are girls’ boarding schools too. 
In any case there are holidays for everybody, and 
a long, lovely summer when lessons may be for- 
gotten. 

Boys and girls whose fathers have grand houses 
in London are sure to spend part of each year (often 
the larger part) in country places like this pleasant 
river valley. Though London is the largest city 
in the whole world, and though parts of it are very 
beautiful, and though parts of it are more inter- 
esting than the most fascinating story book which 
ever was written, it is pleasanter to be somewhere 
else in winter time. It rains and rains and rains 
in London, and sometimes thick banks of dark yel- 
low fog fill the streets, so that it is impossible to 
see one’s way, even though gas lamps and electric 
lights are burned all day. Even a palace in London 
is not pleasant in a November fog. So it comes 
about that English fathers who can keep up two 


PMltl9fl 7t 


COUNTRY HOLIDAYS IN ENGLAND 


57 


homes live in the country in winter time even more 
than in summer. The boys and girls hang up their 
stockings on Christmas eve at the country home 
rather than the city home. They help sing Christ- 
mas carols in village churches and help carry about 
Christmas gifts to old people and sick people, or 
to poor families where there might be no share of 
Christmas jollity. And the old people exclaim — 
how they have grown! How much they look like 
their fathers or their mothers! 


PocitiOB 7. 


IN HOLLAND, THE LAND OF 
WOODEN SHOES 


Everybody has heard of Holland or the Nether- 
lands. You have read about how the sea- waters 
are kept off the lowlands by strong walls called 
dikes; and how canals full of water run through 
the towns and across the fields; and how the peo- 
ple go about in shoes cut from blocks of wood. 

Look for a moment at a map of Europe and see 
how a great bay reaches in from the North Sea 
away up into the Netherlands, almost like a big 
lake. The Dutch people call it the South Sea to 
distinguish it from the great North Sea outside, 
only they use Dutch words and say Zuyder Zee.” 

All around the shores of the Zuyder Zee are 
villages where farmers and fishermen live. They 
are especially convenient places for fishermen's 
homes, because fishing boats can be steered in to 
the wharves and dikes and tied up over Sunday 
within sight of the owners’ windows. 

Now you are going to stand on the top of a 
dike twelve or fifteen miles northeast of Amster- 
dam on the western shore of the Zuyder Zee. 
You will be in a little Dutch town called Volen- 
dam. You will see the great South Sea reaching 
far, far off in the distance, and you will find some 


IN THE LAND OF WOODEN SHOES 59 

of the Volendam young folks out on a wharf be- 
side the boats. 

8, JPosition in Solland, IBeside the Zuyder Zee — 
Bvtch villagers on the fishermen* s wharf in 
Volendam 

Here they are, both boys and girls. That big- 
gest boy sitting down near the right-hand end of 
the wharf is almost grown-up, but the others go 
to school, at least a part of every year. See how 
strong and well they all look. 

The boys’ jackets are red. Aren’t their big, 
baggy trousers funny? All the boys here in 
Volendam wear this kind and they think Ameri- 
can and English clothes are the ones that are 
funny. A few years ago a little American boy 
came to Holland with his artist father and mother, 
and he went to school with the Dutch boys so as 
to learn their language and be friends with them; 
but they laughed so much at his American clothes 
that his mother had to have a pair of big, baggy 
trousers made for him, just like the ones the 
Dutch boys wore; after that, he and the other 
children were the best of friends. 

The little girls’ dresses and long aprons are of 
plaid gingham. The big sister’s apron is of two 
kinds of stuff sewed together — gingham at the 
top, near the belt, and black woollen cloth down 
below, where it keeps her skirts from getting 
soiled. The girls are very proud of those pretty 
white muslin caps and wear them all the time, in 
the house as well as out-of-doors, taking them off 
only when they go to bed at night. 


6o REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

And there are wooden shoes, sure enough — 
eight pairs of them! See; even those smallest 
girls have their little feet shod in the same odd 
way. The shoes look big and loose on the chil- 
dren’s feet; they are meant to be loose so that 
the wearer may be able to drop them off quickly 
at the house door. People take them off when 
they go in doors and go about over the clean 
floors in their thick stockings. They are, of course, 
not soft like nice leather shoes, but thick woolen 
stockings prevent them from hurting the feet. If 
a little girl has to wear a pair that belonged to 
her older sister and that seem a bit too large, she 
stuffs a handful of hay in each shoe-toe and so 
keeps her own feet from slipping about uncom- 
fortably. Sometimes such shoes are painted, but 
oftener they are just plain, bare wood, and once 
a week, or about as often as that, careful mothers 
scrub and scour the shoes with soap and sand, so 
as to keep them neat and clean. 

Those cottage houses are where some of the 
Volendam people live. You do not see much of 
the town from where you stand now, but there 
are a good many more houses behind you and 
off at your right and left. About thirty-five hun- 
dred people live in the whole town. 

Dutch houses are almost always kept very nice 
and clean. These girls, even the very little ones, are 
taught to help make everything tidy. They know 
how to wash the dishes and to dust the benches 
and chairs and tables. That biggest girl probably 
knows how to do all sorts of cooking and clean- 


Petitlon 8. 


IN THE LAND OF WOODEN SHOES 6l 

ing. She will be a fine housekeeper when she is 
old enough to have a house of her very own. 

The boats you see belong to Volendam men. 
They go sailing out from here across the great 
Zuyder Zee and even to the North Sea, so that 
the men may find plenty of cod and herring, and 
they come home loaded with all they can carry. 
They need to be very strong. Notice what heavy 
timbers were used in building them. Do you see 
how they are tied with ropes to keep them from 
bumping against each other or drifting away? 
This rope directly in front of us fastens a boat 
which you do not see, off at your right. The 
swell of the water must be making it rock and 
pull away; just see how tight the rope is stretched 
from the heavy wooden pile in this dike on which 
you stand. 

Some of the boats have big fishing-nets hung 
up on the masts to dry. 

The mark painted on that big sail is somewhat 
like the license number on the wagon of an Ameri- 
can milkman. It looks like V. D. 138, but it is 
not quite plain. All the Volendam fishing boats 
are marked in that way with numbers. When the 
sails are taken down the boats look a good deal 
alike unless you are quite familiar with them. 

These older boys often sleep at night on one of 
the boats. It saves room in the little house at 
home and then one is all ready to start off on a 
fishing trip at sunrise. 

Just think how interesting it would be to lie 
down at night, in one of these boats, with a good, 


Position 8. 


62 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

thick blanket or two as a cushion between you 
and the hard planks, and then look up at the 
twinkling stars until you fall asleep! 

Yet it is not always so peaceful as that for the 
men who go out fishing — no, indeed. As you see 
it here, just now, the sea is as still and serene as 
the water in a gold-fish bowl ; but you should see 
it in a heavy storm 1 At such times it is quite an- 
other matter. When a heavy gale is blowing, the 
sea is ploughed into high waves and deep fur- 
rows, and the water dashes up here on the paving 
stones in the side of the dike as if it were trying 
to tear holes and force its way over into the vil- 
lage streets and the gardens and fields. On a 
night like that you certainly would not care to 
sleep in a boat, pitching and tossing about, with 
first the bows up in the air and then the stern up 
in the air, and the mast all the time creaking and 
groaning. 

In stormy weather, the best place for everybody 
is in a snug little house on shore, with a bright 
fire and a good hot supper, and father telling 
stories about the storms he has seen years and 
years ago. 

In our own country you know that a part of the 
taxes which people pay are spent in building roads 
and bridges. Here in the “ Low Land,” or Neth- 
erland, money is used also to keep the dikes or 
sea-walls and canal-walls in good repair. In other 
countries the land next the sea-coast is higher 
than the water, so the sea could never overflow it. 
Here in Holland there are miles and miles and 


Position 8. 


IN THE LAND OF WOODEN SHOES 63 

miles of farm-lands which are actually lower than 
the surface of the ocean, and only the close-built 
dikes keep them from being overflowed and swal- 
lowed up by the sea which lies around them. 

There is a fine old story about a Dutch boy 
exactly like these boys here — a story which every- 
body in Holland knows; indeed it is in a good 
many American and English books. This is the 
story. 


One afternoon a boy was going on an errand 
along a lonely road that led. over the back of a 
great dike or sea wall. Here in Holland a great 
many roads are built in that way, along the top 
of a dike. It was late, and the boy was trudging 
along as fast as he could, to do his errand and get 
home for supper. All at once, he heard down be- 
side the dike a sound like water trickling out of 
a jug. 

“ What can it be ? ” he said to himself. And, 
being a boy who used his head, he stopped and 
listened. Then he went down close to the side of 
the dike where the fields began. 

It was water. The water was trickling in a 
very, very slender little stream through a tiny hole 
in the dike. It came from the sea on one side and 
it was coming out in a field on the other side. 

The boy thought hard for an instant. He knew 
very well that it would be a terrible thing if that 
little stream should wear the hole bigger and big- 
ger and finally tear the dike to pieces. Then the 
sea would pour in through the ruined dike, and 
the fields would be spoiled, and more than one 
pretty village would be overflowed, and the people 
would be drowned. No. It would not do to let 
that water run. It must be stopped, and stopped 
at once. 

So the boy knelt down by the dike and pressed 
some dirt into the little hole and held his hand 


Position 8. 


64 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

tight over the place so that the water should not 
run through. “ Somebody will soon come along 
the road/' he thought to himself, “ and then men 
can be called to mend the hole and save the coun- 
try from being drowned.” 

But nobody came. It grew later and later, and 
darker and darker. Still nobody came. He grew 
tired and stiff and cold, but he knew he must not 
leave his post. He called and shouted for help, 
but nobody heard him. 

“ I mvtst stay. The water must be held back,” 
he said to himself. .Night came on, dark and 
chilly. There was little chance that anybody else 
would pass along the road. 

It was a long, long night, black and cold and 
terrible. But, when morning did come at last, 
some farmers going by along the dike heard the 
boy call and went to see what was the matter. 
Then you may well believe they were astonished. 
One of them took the boy's place and stopped the 
hole in the dike, while the others went hurrying 
to town for workmen to come and repair the 
broken place. If it had not been for that one boy's 
faithfulness in sticking to his post, the whole coun- 
try-side would have been flooded and ruined. It 
was only his quick good sense and his brave en- 
durance that saved the land. 

The farms in this country raise plenty of vege- 
tables, and quantities of grass. Great herds of 
cows are pastured in some of the fields, and the 
people make large amounts of butter and cheese. 
In a place called Edam, only a mile and a half 
from this very spot where you are now, they make 
cheeses that are sold afterwards by grocers in 
England and America. 

There are public schools in this village where 
all the children go for their lessons. Holland has 
had public schools longer than any other country 


Pofition 8. 


IN THE LAND OF WOODEN SHOES 65 

in the world. The children are in different classes 
according to their age, just as children are in the 
school where you go at home. 

Those wooden shoes would make altogether 
too much noise for a schoolroom. The boys and 
girls do not wear them indoors, but drop them at 
the school-house door and put them on again at 
recess and when school is over. 

The history lessons that these young folks learn 
in school are full of true stories about the splendid 
courage of the Dutch people in old times. In city 
schools they study the history of other countries, 
too, but naturally they give a good deal of time 
to the history of their own land and its great men. 
If you ever have a chance to read a book called 
‘‘ Brave Little Holland,'' be sure to do so, for it 
is one of the most interesting books you ever saw. 

Those smallest girls are probably just begin- 
ning to go to school. Most likely they are learning 
to read in Dutch primers. Perhaps they know 
how to count. The names for some numbers are 
so much like English you yourself could easily 
guess what the words mean. 


Een 

(one). 

Zeven 

(seven). 

Acht 

(eight). 

Twaalf 

(twelve). 

Deriien 

(thirteen). 

Zeventien 

(seventeen). 

Twintig 

(twenty). 


The big sister will teach them a good many 

more things at home — how to sweep the floor and 
5 


Position 8. 


66 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


how to wipe the breakfast dishes and how to tell 
the time by the clock. 

Hoe laat is hetf ('‘What time is it?'’) she will 
ask that little girl in the plaid waist; and the little 
maid will be so proud when she can say promptly, 
Kwartier voor zeven (“ a quarter before seven ”), 
or Half acht (" half eight,” that is half-past seven). 

The school problems in Dutch arithmetic speak 
of cents, but a Dutch cent is worth not quite half 
as much as a cent in the United States. Larger 
amounts of money are often reckoned in florins — 
a silver florin is worth about forty American cents 
— or in ryksdaalder ; — that is a silver coin of two 
and a half florins, worth nearly the same as an 
American dollar. 

These young people understand very well the 
value of money, and they like to earn it for them- 
selves. Very often they do have chances to earn 
extra pieces of silver by running on errands and 
by serving as models for the photographers and 
painters who visit Volendam. And most of them 
are prudent, too, in the care of their money; they 
do not spend it all at once, but save it for some 
special use, like buying presents at Christmas time. 


Position 8. 


LITTLE COUSINS IN A GERMAN 
VILLAGE 


Do you know any children whose fathers and 
mothers came from Germany? It is a beautiful 
country, and people who were born there are sure 
to be fond of their old home, no matter how much 
they like their new home. Every year thousands 
of men and women do cross the ocean in great 
steamships, bringing their little folks with them, 
to seek new fortunes in our own big and beautiful 
America. Almost everybody who does go away 
from Germany leaves some relatives behind, and 
so it comes about that many little Americans have 
cousins in Europe. 

When you studied Europe in the geography 
class at school, you found that the German Em- 
pire is a very large country. Look at a map of 
Europe now, and see how it tells you about the 
difference between various parts of the German 
Empire. The northern portions of Germany bor- 
der on the sea. The southern parts of Germany 
must be higher land — ^you can be sure of that, for 
the map shows mountains in the south and all the 
great rivers begin toward the southern part of the 
country, flowing down northward or northwest- 
ward to the lower level of the sea. 

Now look particularly at the river Rhine, which 


68 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


your map shows in the western part of Germany. 
It begins away up among the high mountains of 
Switzerland, and it ends in the Netherlands, but 
most of its course is through Germany. Any 
good-sized map of Germany shows mountains 
alongside the river. Your map probably shows 
the city of Cologne beside the river; that is the 
place where some of our delicious perfumery is 
made. 

About seventy miles up-river from Cologne 
(that is, toward the southeast) is a certain little 
village on the east bank of the river. The village 
street runs along near the water, and a mountain 
towers far above the street. What we are going 
to do now is to see some German children who 
live in that village, and who have come down the 
river road for a walk. 

9. PoBition in Germany, Storied Castles of the 
Brothers, Bomhofen on the Rhine, — smjuth 
from the river road 

Here we are in far-away Germany on the road 
beside the famous river Rhine. You do not see 
the river itself, but it is just at the other side of 
the road, off at your right, below the bank. 

These girls live here in Bornhofen, and go to a 
village school. Do the girls in your school wear 
aprons like theirs? You cannot see their homes 
from here, but the houses where they do live are 
only a short distance away. If you look sharply 
you will see a small hotel where travelers stay 
when they come to visit the place. 


LITTLE COUSINS IN GERMANY 


69 


Did you ever see a fence just like this? Those 
big-leaved vines climbing the tall poles behind the 
fence are grape vines. Some of the finest grapes 
in the world are grown in places along this Rhine 
river-valley. 

That church spire belongs to a Catholic con- 
vent. You can see the roofs of the convent build- 
ings over beyond the vineyard and behind some 
trees. Notice the cross on the tall spire; have you 
ever seen one just like it near where you live at 
home? 

This stone cross right here beside the road has 
the figure of Christ carved upon it, to remind 
everyone who passes by of the way in which He 
died for the sake of God’s world and God’s chil- 
dren. These little girls have been taught to think 
of Him and to say a prayer in His name when they 
pass this cross. 

A path turns in just at the left of this cross, and 
by that path you could go to the church. A good 
many strangers do come here every year to visit 
this particular church. 

The girls seem shy. Not one of them looks 
straight at us. Most likely they speak only Ger- 
man, and if you tried to talk to them in English, 
they would not understand a word you said. In 
the large towns many German children study 
English as a part of their school work, but in a 
little country place like this there is not much 
chance to learn a new language. Perhaps their 
fathers may move some day to Cologne or Ham- 
burg or Berlin. Then, when the girls go to a 


Potltloa 9. 


70 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


High School they will probably have English 
grammars to study and will learn by heart 


We are, 
You are, 
They are,” 


I am, 

Thou art. 

He or she is. 


and they will have a dreadful time learning to pro- 
nounce ‘‘ the ’’ and “ this ” and '' they.” German 
talk does not use any such sound as th and they 
will have to try over and over before they can pro- 
nounce the words rightly instead of saying de and 
dis and day. 

The school lessons in a country village like this 
are not quite so hard as those in the city schools, 
but still there are a great many things to learn. 
Reading and spelling and writing everybody has 
to study, and the German letters are different from 
the letters in English and American books. This 
is the way a German geography would say Amer- 
ica lies west of the Atlantic Ocean ” : — 

amcrifa liegt Don bcm Mtlanlif^^cn SWccr* 

Arithmetic must be learned too. There are 
here no dollars and dimes and cents; the questions 
ask about the cost of things in marks and pfennigs. 
If you go shopping anywhere in Germany it is 
quite necessary to know all these by heart. A 
mark is the same as an English shilling or twenty- 
four cents of American money. A pfennig is a 
quarter of an American cent. 

Besides these simpler lessons, the older boys 
and girls study German history and know all sorts 


Position 9. 


LITTLE COUSINS IN GERMANY 71 

of interesting stories about the great men of old 
times who worked and fought to make Germany 
a strong and powerful nation. The girls also have 
lessons in sewing and knitting and embroidery. 

One of the greatest days of the whole year is 
when boys and girls are confirmed in the church. 
They have first to study hard on their catechism 
till they can answer the questions perfectly; then 
one day all who are old enough march to the 
church in procession, in fresh, new clothes, and 
receive the bishop's blessing. 

Bornhofen boys do a good deal to help their 
fathers out of doors. They learn how to look 
after grape vines like these beside the road, keep- 
ing out the weeds and keeping off insects. A 
good many of them know how to row boats on 
the river. Some of them are planning to learn 
their fathers' trades. Probably most of them will 
go away for at least a few years to be soldiers of 
the Emperor and learn how to fight for Germany. 
Every boy who is called for must go and be a 
soldier; the Emperor does not take any but the 
well and strong. And if a boy can pass certain 
very, very hard school examinations he may be 
excused after a single year of army duty, and 
come home again. 

Suppose this big girl with the striped waist 
were to ask you to go for a walk. Perhaps you 
would all climb up a steep path to where those 
castles stand away up on the top of the hill. 

There is always great fun for these girls at 
Christmas time. They plan for weeks beforehand. 


Position 9. 


72 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

just as you do, about the presents they mean to 
give their fathers and mothers and all their cousins 
and friends. Very often they make the presents 
themselves — all these girls know how to sew and 
knit and crochet; even that little one can do very 
easy stitches. Then they gild nuts and apples and 
make all sorts of gay things ready for trimming 
the Christmas tree. Every family has a tree at 
home — it may be big or it may be little, but a 
tree of some sort there is sure to be. A very fine 
one has sometimes a lovely doll dressed like a 
fairy away up on the very top. The presents are 
not hung upon the tree but only laid around it, 
so the tree itself with tiny candles stuck on the 
boughs, looks pretty for a long time, and they usu- 
ally keep it for a week or more just to enjoy the 
prettiness of it. Everybody goes to church and 
hears the beautiful Christmas music and every- 
body has gay, frosted spice-cakes to eat and there 
is fun even for those who cannot spend much 
money. 

Easter, as well as Christmas, is a happy holiday 
for our little Germans. They- dye eggs all sorts 
of gay colors and hide them for surprises. There 
is always beautiful music in this church, too, at 
Easter time. 

When one of these girls has a birthday, that is 
a great occasion too. The mother bakes a cake 
and fastens candles around it; sometimes little tin 
candle-holders are stuck into the top of the loaf. 
There are just as many candles as the child has 
years. How many candles do you suppose that 


Position 9. 


LITTLE COUSINS IN GERMANY 


73 


little one had on her last birthday cake? Five? 
Six? The bigger girls must have had a good 
many more. There are almost always some pres- 
ents too for the birthday child — a pretty ribbon 
perhaps ; a new dress for the favorite doll or some- 
thing of that sort. If friends come to call, the girl 
meets them at the door and says Herzliche willkom- 
men, which means “ A hearty welcome to you.’’ 
Then the visitor says Ich gratulire (“I congratulate 
you and most likely gives her a kiss and some 
pretty present. 

The birthdays of fathers and mothers and grand- 
parents are celebrated as well as those of the little 
folks. Children always give father or mother a 
special birthday kiss and do something to mark 
the day. Maybe a pretty bunch of flowers is gath- 
ered and put in a glass of water on the table. 
Sometimes a new song is learned on purpose to 
make the day particularly nice and pleasant. 

These girls know a great many of the same fairy 
stories that you enjoy yourself — ** Cinderella,’’ 
** The Sleeping Beauty,” ‘‘ Snow White and Rose 
Red ” — all those and many others are in their 
story-books at home; indeed many of the nicest 
old fairy stories that you know were written in 
German years ago, especially for German children, 
by two brothers named Grimm, and American and 
English children read them only after they have 
been translated into our English language. 

There are endless numbers of games and plays 
for children here. That big sister certainly knows 
ever so many songs that she used to sing to the 


.Pofltlon 9, 


74 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

little one. There is one pretty song about the 
fingers on the hand, which pleases a little brother 
or sister. The big sister counts off the fingers as 
she sings, beginning with the thumb : — 

“ This is the mother, good and dear ; 

This is the father with hearty cheer; 

. This is the brother, stout and tall ; 

This is the sister who plays with her doll; 

And this is the baby, the pet of all ; 

Behold the good family, great and small ! ” 

Here in Bornhofen they are fond of Hide-and- 
seek.” They play ‘‘ Blindman’s-buff ” in almost 
the same way as in America, only they call the 
game Blind Cow.” Boys and girls both play 
that game and '‘Tag.” One kind of tag is varied 
by having the children as they run try to get to 
some spot where they can touch iron. The one 
who is It cannot tag anybody while he is touching 
iron. 

Boys are fond of playing ball; the older ones 
have races and wrestling matches. 

See how thick the grass grows along beside this 
fence. Do you know how to whistle loudly with a 
grass-blade between your thumbs? It is favorite 
fun here for quite little folks. Little girls make 
dandelion-curls, too, by splitting the hollow stems 
and fastening them about their ears. Sometimes 
they make beautiful, long chains of dandelion 
stems, pushing the small end of each stem into the 
bigger end, so as to form a link. 

There is a story or story-game about the violet 
which these village children know. Perhaps you 


Position 9. 


LITTLE COUSINS IN GERMANY 75 

know it too. Violets grow on that steep hillside 
and you need a violet or else a pansy to help you 
tell the story to anybody else. 

This is the violet story: 

Once there was a man whose wife died, leaving 
him with two little daughters. Afterwards he 
married a widow with two daughters of her own 
and they all lived together. They had only five 
green chairs in their little parlor, so it was hard 
to plan for everybody to sit down. 

Now the new mother was very fond of fine- 
clothes, and her own best gown was so beautiful 
that she always spread out the skirt over two of 
the little green chairs. Her own daughters had 
a chair apiece and sat one at her right and the 
other at her left. Then only a single green chair 
remained, and the father’s two girls had to sit 
with one chair between them. 

The father did not like this at all — in fact it 
made him very angry — but he could not help it; 
and, as he had a very bad cold, he sat on a stool in 
the middle of the room, wearing an orange colored 
jacket, with his feet in a tub of hot water ! 

Just look at the next violet or pansy you see and 
you will find the whole family. The biggest of the 
colored petals is the stepmother, and if you look 
behind her you will see she sits on two wee green 
chairs. The petals on either side are her two 
daughters, with a tiny green chair for each. The 
other two petals are the other little sisters with 
only one green chair between them. And if you 
gently pull all the petals off, you will discover the 
father in his orange jacket, with his funny little 
legs in the tub! 

In the houses where these children live there 


Position 9. 


76 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

are plenty of chairs, but some of the house-furnish- 
ing is quite different from ours. The stove that 
keeps a living-room warm in winter time is cov- 
ered with porcelain tiles, not with iron. The chil- 
dren do not have big blankets tucked around them 
when they cuddle down on their beds to sleep 
through a cold winter night. Instead, they have 
another thick bed of feathers or down laid over 
them. It is nice and warm, but one has to lie very 
still. If he turns over in a hurry, the warm, puffy 
cover slips down on the floor and the sleeper 
wakes, shivering, to pull it up and fix it in place 
again. 

German mothers do not have the sheets and 
pillow-cases and other linen washed every week 
as your mother does. It is the fashion here to put 
the soiled clothes and table-linen and such things 
into a big closet and have a huge washing only 
once in two or three months. Then everything is 
scrubbed as white and sweet as can be, and the 
clean clothes are dried in the sunshine, making, 
as you can imagine, an enormous quantity of fresh 
things all at once. Mothers like to have great 
piles of underclothes and sheets and towels and 
tablecloths all ready in the house, so that there 
will be plenty to last till the next grand wash-day. 

Very likely these older girls have already begun 
to knit cotton lace and to hem pillow-cases, ready 
for the time when they shall begin to keep house 
in homes of their own. It takes a good while to 
make all that will be needed. As fast as things are 
finished, they are laid away carefully in a chest or 


Position 9. 


LITTLE COUSINS IN GERMANY 


77 


a big bureau. The girl who makes the most things 
and the prettiest things, ready for the home some- 
time by and by, is greatly praised by her mother 
and the neighbors. 

All these girls know a good deal about house- 
keeping. Their mothers at home teach them how 
to make bread and soups and how to cook vege- 
tables and prepare coffee. They know how to 
sweep and dust and they can scrub a wooden floor 
so white and clean you would not mind using it 
for your supper table. Whenever they do have 
homes of their own they will be likely to be good 
housekeepers. 

And without any doubt they can sing. Almost 
all the German children in the villages about here 
know how to sing and enjoy it immensely. Some 
of the most beautiful music in all the world has 
been written by German men. 

In your own school at home you probably sing 
a good many songs whose music was written here 
in Germany and which was meant to be sung with 
German words. Quite likely you know this beau- 
tiful Christmas hymn. These Bornhofen girls 
know it well, and every year, when Christmas 
comes, they sing it too: — 

“ Quiet night, holy night ! 

World asleep, vigil keep 
Only the holy Mother and Boy ; 

Wonderful Child of hope and joy, 

Rest in heavenly peace.” 


Position 9* 


78 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 





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Position 9. 




AFTER SCHOOL IN DENMARK 

Do you know where Copenhagen is? You can 
find it on your map of Europe, if you look in the 
eastern part of Denmark, just where a narrow 
channel of water separates Denmark from Sweden 
and lets the Baltic flow out towards the open 
ocean. The city is about as far north as Glasgow 
and Edinburgh. 

The city of Copenhagen was built hundreds of 
years ago. There are wide streets and narrow 
streets, canals and bridges, and shops and churches 
and schools very much like those you have seen in 
your own country. There are palaces, too, where 
the King and the Crown Prince live, and there are 
streets and streets and streets full of houses where 
boys and girls live and work and play. 

Danish people are very fond of trees and flow- 
ers, and they have kept a good many pieces of 
ground for parks and gardens ; there nobody may 
build a house or a shop, but everybody may walk 
about or sit on the benches, or read or talk or 
watch the birds or play games, or do anything he 
likes. 

Now we are going to see a favorite place beside 
a little pond in one of those parks. It is late in 
the afternoon, so school is out, and an army of 
children have run ahead of us and reached the 
place first. We shall find them in possession. 


8o 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


10, JPosition in Denmark, Fun for hoys and girls 
on their favorite playground, Ostre ArUaeg, 
Copenhagen 

Here they are, big and little! I should not 
wonder if some of the wee babies in the carriages 
had been here with their mothers or nurses all the 
afternoon. Look carefully and you may find a 
doll-carriage, too. 

The grown-up people often sit on that bench 
which you see at the foot of the hill, and watch the 
games. The bench makes a very good table, too, 
if you wish to play tea-party, only of course you 
must clear things away very neatly, after the party 
is over. 

The sand on this table and in that big heap on 
the ground is nice and clean, so that it never spoils 
anybody’s clothes, no matter how it is handled. 
Do you see how this nearest boy is making tall 
loaves, by pressing sand into a tin mould and then 
turning the mould over so that the loaf slips out ? 
Tin moulds in all sorts of shapes are sold in the 
shops, and children often have sets of them for 
Christmas presents, so that they can make stars 
and crescents and rosettes and all sorts of shapes 
like the cakes mother bakes in the oven at home. 

What do you suppose the girl just beyond him 
is going to make? Probably it will be something 
funny. Don’t you wish she would show it to us 
now? 

Perhaps it was the shy little girl in the white 
apron and white hat who made that fine row of 


AFTER SCHOOL IN DENMARK 8l 

sand-cakes along the farther end of the table. Do 
you see her? She is almost hidden behind the big 
girl, and she holds something in her hand as if 
she were eating a real ginger-cake. Have you 
noticed what she is playing with now? You see 
children roll hoops here, just as they do in the 
town where you live. 

There is another bench at the left, quite full of 
little folks. Do you see that one child has a jump- 
rope? She enjoys it as well as you would, and she 
can jump well, too, swinging the rope forward or 
backwards over her head or back and forth be- 
neath her feet — you know how many different 
things can be done by a clever girl with a good 
rope. 

I wonder what those boys, away over near the 
other long bench, mean to do with the sticks they 
carry. Do you see three of them with long sticks 
just alike? Probably they are to have a game of 
hockey in an open field near here. There are fine 
big spaces for playing running games, so that 
everybody may have a good time without getting 
in other people’s way. 

Look carefully at the children’s faces. Notice 
their clothes and their shoes. Are they like yours 
or different from yours? 

Sometimes boys and girls bring boats to sail on 
the pond. That is usually done when there is a 
holiday, for it is a bother to carry a boat to school 
and if you wish to come here right from school 
you need to have the boat all ready. 

School begins at nine in the morning and lasts 
6 


Position iO. 


82 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

until noon; then there is an intermission for din- 
ner or lunch. The afternoon session usually lasts 
from two until four. A great many of the little 
folks here now are too small to go to school. 
Children here in Copenhagen do not usually go 
until they are six years old; then they study al- 
most the very same things that you study, only 
their school-books are printed in Danish instead 
of English words. Of course they do not learn as 
much about the geography and history of the 
United States as American children do in your 
school, but, on the other hand, they know more 
about the geography and history of Europe. 

There are fine, large school buildings here, as 
nice as those we have in America. Many of the 
schoolrooms have beautiful pictures on the walls 
and plaster casts of famous statues. Some of the 
casts are like the beautiful marble statues made a 
great many years ago by a famous sculptor who 
was born and brought up right here in this very 
city of Copenhagen. His name was Bertel Thor- 
waldsen. Most likely he did his first modelling 
with sand as these other Danish children are doing 
now. His father was a ship-builder, and Bertel, 
when he was not much older than this nearest 
boy, used to carve beautiful shapes out of wood, 
to be fastened upon the bows of his father’s ships 
— figure-heads they were called. When people 
saw what good ideas he had, and how hard he was 
willing to work, they gave him money to go to 
an art school and study so that he might learn 
how to model in clay. Prize after prize he took 


Position 10. 


AFTER SCHOOL IN DENMARK * 83 

in the art school, and by and by his teachers sent 
him to Rome, in Italy, where he could learn still 
more. In Italy he worked so hard and so happily 
that he became one of the most famous sculptors 
of his time, and you can imagine how proud the 
people were here in Copenhagen, to say '' Oh, yes 
— we know him well; why, we used to go to school 
with him ! 

Boys and girls here learn to use their heads and 
their hands, too! They have singing and gym- 
nastics and drawing, and the boys learn how to 
make all sorts of things in wood, using sharp 
knives and chisels, saws and planes. These little 
girls will all learn to cook and to sew as fast as 
they grow big enough. 

One favorite luncheon out here in the park is 
a sort of delicious sandwich; Copenhagen people 
call a sandwich smorrehrod. Sliced bread is evenly 
buttered, and then covered with savory sausage- 
meat or something of that sort. Danish children 
take such sandwiches to school for luncheon and 
carry them to picnics; they have a great many 
picnics, too. 

There are a good many beautiful parks and 
gardens here in Copenhagen, and crowds of peo- 
ple go to them on Saturday afternoons and holi- 
days. At these parks there are concerts and all 
sorts of games and amusements. Often there are 
beautiful fireworks in the evening. Almost every- 
body can afford to go and to have a good time, 
for Danish people are sensible and industrious; 
they are not afraid of work, and so most of them 


Position 10. 


84 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


can earn money enough to live comfortably and 
have plenty of fun along with their work. Parents 
and children have a good many family picnics. 

Children here are usually polite and well-be- 
haved. The very babies soon learn to say Velbe- 
komme ('‘ welcome ”) to a visitor, and Farvel; 
Komigjen (“Good-bye; come again”) when the 
visitor goes away. One of the customs seems 
odd to us; at the end of a meal at home the little 
folks say Tak for mad (“Thanks for the meal”); 
that is the way their mothers have taught them. 

These children whom you see now play a good 
many of the very same games that you play your- 
self — only they chatter in Danish While they play. 
One kind of “ tag ” which they like begins in a 
funny way. A number of children gather in a 
group and one outside asks these questions and 
gets these answers — 

“What have you there?” — “Bread and cheese.” 

“Where’s mine?” — “The cat got it.” 

“Where’s the cat?”— “In the forest.” 

“Where’s the forest?” — “Fire burned it.” 

“ Where’s the fire? ” — “ Water quenched it.” 

“ Where’s the water? “ Ox drank it.” 

“ Where’s the ox? ” — “ Butcher killed it.” 

“Where’s the butcher?” — “Rope hung him.” 

“ Where’s the rope? ” — “ Rat gnawed it.” 

“ Where’s the rat? ” — “ Cat caught it.” 

“ Where’s the cat? ” — “ Behind the church door. 
The first one who laughs will catch it ! ” 

Then they all scatter and run, and the one who 
asked the questions tries to catch them. 


r’^Bltion 10. 


AFTER SCHOOL IN DENMARK 


85 


Christmas is a great time for surprises and frol- 
ics here in Denmark. Boys and girls save up their 
money for weeks beforehand so that they can give 
presents. The school lessons in drawing and in' 
wood-work help them to make all sorts of pretty 
things, and the girls know how to sew and knit 
and embroider. The shops offer pretty new things 
for presents, and street peddlers have big baskets 
full of toys and cakes and candies. Farmers’ wag- 
ons from the country come at Christmas time 
loaded with little trees all green and smelling of 
the fragrant woods where they grew. 

Did you ever read Hans Andersen’s story about 

The Fir Tree,” and the wonderful things it saw 
— ^^how it grew up out in the woods and then how 
it was taken away to be a Christmas tree ? It is a 
delightful story which you find printed in English 
in a great many different books for children; it 
was written ever so long ago in Danish by a Dane 
who lived right here in Copenhagen, the very 
town where you are now. He used to walk around 
the streets and talk with the children in the parks, 
just as these grown-up women do here. 


Position 10. 


LITTLE NEIGHBORS OF A NORSE 
WATERFALL 


Norway is a land of waterfalls. Any good map 
will tell you why. Just look and see how moun- 
tains stand only a little way back from the sea- 
shore. The whole country lies so far to the north 
that the winters bring quantities of deep snow. 
When the warm spring sunshine melts the huge 
snow-drifts, high up on the mountains, the water 
has to run down somewhere, somehow, to reach 
the sea, so it makes brooks and rivers everywhere. 
As the mountains are so many and so high, it 
often happens that the running streams come to 
steep, jumping-off places. There you find the 
waterfalls. 

Look once more at a map which shows Nor- 
way, and find the town of Bergen on its western 
seacoast. Several country roads lead over the 
hills and around the hills, going from Bergen to 
other towns. If we were to follow one of those 
roads, and ride seventy-five miles up into the 
mountain country northeast of Bergen, we should 
come to one of the prettiest waterfalls in all Nor- 
way. It is right beside the house where some lit- 
tle folks live all the year around. 


NEIGHBORS OF A NORSE WATERFALL 


87 


11 • Position in Norway, Children at play in a 
farmer^ s field before the terraced Tvinde water- 
fall near Vossevangen 

Here they are! They were playing with those 
whirling pin-wheels, but now they have paused 
in the game to look with wondering amusement 
at the American clothes of the strangers who have 
come into their field. Just think how far away 
from your own home this field is ! 

Two of these little girls are dressed in their very 
best clothes, such as they wear to church on Sun- 
day. Do see how fine they look with those long 
embroidered aprons, and the odd little short jack- 
ets trimmed with gay colors across the breast. 
And aren’t the small bonnets pretty over the fair^ 
flaxen hair? No doubt those little sisters are en- 
joying the importance of their holiday clothes just 
as well as your little sister enjoys her best things, 
when mother puts them on. All the same, they 
would better be careful, when they run with the 
pin-wheels against the wind, that they do not fall 
and soil the aprons and tear the best skirts. It is 
really more fun to play in strong, plain clothes, 
which you may forget entirely in the fun of a 
grand race or a sudden scramble. 

How many playmates are there in all ? Do you 
see any that you feel sure are brothers? 

Did you ever make pin-wheels like these? Most 
children have made them; it is very easy. You 
need a piece of strong paper five or six inches 


88 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

across, a small stick for a handle, and one good, 
straight pin. First you take the paper and you 
cut or tear it into an exact square; then you cut 
or tear a diagonal slit from each corner about half 
way across towards the centre of the square. That 
divides each corner in two, so that you have eight 
corner-pieces around the edge. Then you bend 
every other one of the corner pieces over towards 
the centre. Push the pin through each one and 
through the middle of the square. Stick the pin 
in the end of your handle and there is your wheel. 
Every breath of wind makes it whirl, and, if you 
run fast, holding it out straight ahead of you, the 
whirling is sometimes so fast you can hardly see 
the paper arms at all. Try it and see. 

But the children would better not run around in 
this deep grass. If they do, somebody may come 
to one of those open windows and say, “ Don’t 
tread the grass down, children — let it grow so that 
there will be plenty of hay for the cows next win- 
ter !” And the children will think — “Sure enough ! 
If the grass is trampled it will not make nice hay, 
and the cows will need all the good, sweet hay 
they can get when the deep snow comes.” And so 
they will scamper out of that tall grass and play 
nearer the house and the wood-pile. 

Already the children’s father has once cut the 
grass in this field and hung it on a sort of fence 
or trellis to dry; — that is the hay-rack now, off at 
your right. Beyond the hay field, over nearer the 
falls, is a vegetable field. Still farther away he 
has a patch of some sort of growing grain — you 


Position 11. 


NEIGHBORS OF A NORSE WATERFALL 


89 


can see that just over the thatched roof beyond 
the wood-pile. 

Just think of living every day in such a beau- 
tiful place as this, beside a river that looks as if 
it came tumbling out of the very sky ! The water 
you see now, leaping and scrambling and dancing 
down over that steep mountain-side, comes from 
springs and brooks still farther up, where last win- 
ter’s snows are still melting under the summer 
sun. After it reaches the foot of the cliffs, there 
beyond the house, it will flow away in a noisy 
little river; then the river will go on and on among 
the hills, till finally it will reach the deep, salt 
waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean. 

Have you noticed how curiously the rock is 
ranged in layers, like steps in a giant’s stairway? 
When you study geology by and by, you will find 
that such rock-layers (“ strata,” the geologists 
call them) tell the most marvellous things about 
how this world took shape long, long, long ago, 
before any men lived on the earth at all. 

In some parts of Norway there are cities with 
fine large buildings of brick and stone, paved 
streets and electric cars and electric lights, beau- 
tiful shops, and homes full of things elegant and 
expensive. But, after all, children brought up in 
a lovely place like this have the best of Norway 
for their very own. 

Most of the farm-houses in this part of Norway 
are built like the one here, with a stone basement 
and wooden walls above. Not many of the houses 
are painted; they are usually left like this, to turn 


Position 11, 


QO real children in many lands 

all sorts of pretty browns and grays where the 
sun and rain beat on the timbers and boards. 

Do those windows open in the same way as the 
windows of your house at home? 

See how the grass is growing in thick patches 
on the roof. It is a good thing, too, for the win- 
ters bring bitterly cold weather in this valley, and 
a coat of turf on the house-roof is like an extra 
blanket over one’s bed! 

If you were to go into the house, you would find 
it quite plain and bare, without many carpets or 
curtains, but everything would be comfortable and 
cosy. You would find a bench built along two 
sides of the living room, making a big corner seat. 
The dinner table is set in that corner of the room, 
so that the benches are all ready for seats. 

They have very good things to eat here in Nor- 
way. The children think their mother makes the 
nicest things in the world. The bread here is not 
baked in big puffy loaves nor in long sticks, but 
in big flat, hard cakes, as large as the biggest 
dinner-plate you ever saw. The children often 
eat it with cheese. Fish of different kinds — her- 
ring, cod and the like, can be bought in the near- 
est village; sometimes fathers and big brothers 
catch other fish — small ones — in the mountain 
brooks near here. Sausages the mother makes 
herself. Potatoes and cabbages grow in that gar- 
den patch you see yonder. The children drink 
milk and the grown-up people are fond of hot 
coffee. Sometimes they have ginger-snaps, and 
a delicious creamy stuff made of sour milk, all 


Position 11. 


NEIGHBORS OF A NORSE WATERFALL 


91 


thick and quivery, with sugar sprinkled over it. 
Christmas Day and birthdays there are likely to 
be a big roast of beef and a frosted cake. 

After each meal boys and girls always say 
^Thanks for the food, dear father and mother.” 
That is the way they have been taught, and it 
would be very queer and rude to omit it — as bad 
as running off to bed without saying “ Good- 
night.” 

The village school, w'here these children gq 
every day in term-time, takes in children of all 
ages, from little bits of boys and girls just learn- 
ing the alphabet, up to boys and girls who are 
quite tall and old — perhaps fourteen or fifteen. 
The lessons are in some ways the same as your 
own, that is, the children are taught how to read 
and to spell, and to do problems in addition, sub- 
traction, multiplication and division. But the 
words in the reading books are Norwegian words, 
not English; the arithmetic examples tell about 
krone and ore instead of shillings or cents. Of 
course they study the history of Norway more 
than the history of America and England. 

By the way, do you know that Norwegian sail- 
ors went across the Atlantic Ocean and explored 
parts of America long before the time of Colum- 
bus? It is so. The Norwegian, or Norse people, 
have always been brave sailors, fond of adventure, 
and a captain from Norway knew parts of Eastern 
Canada and New England long before the time of 
Columbus. But the Norwegians did not say much 
about it, and nobody realized how large and im- 


position 11. 


92 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

portant the new lands were, so very soon most 
people forgot all about their existence. 

There are a good many interesting stories that 
these children will learn when they are old enough 
to study the history of their own land. The little 
ones probably could not tell you why the Seven- 
teenth of May is celebrated in the village with 
cannon-firing and rockets and Roman-candles, 
much like the American Fourth of July. When 
they are older they will know it is because that 
day is the birthday of Norway. It was on the sev- 
enteenth day of May, 1814, that the country ceased 
to be ruled by the King of Denmark. 

The children think that some of the nicest les- 
sons in their school are the ones where they learn 
to do things with their hands. The boys whittle, 
and carve wood, and weave baskets from tough 
willow twigs. The girls sew, and crochet and em- 
broider. When Christmas time comes around, 
they are able to make all sorts of pretty things 
for presents. 

There is great fun at Christmas time. The chil- 
dren keep all their gifts hidden away until that 
time, so that nobody will know about them. 
Things are wrapped in ever so many papers, and 
marked in disguised handwriting so as to puzzle 
Fader and Moder (that is the way they say 
“ Father ” and “ Mother ”). Mysterious parcels 
will be found on people’s doorsteps — nobody 
knows how. There will be presents for every- 
body. The boys will even tie handfuls of wheat 
and barley to those hay-poles or in some such 


Position 11. 


NEIGHBORS OF A NORSE WATERFALL 


93 


place, as a gift to the hungry winter-birds. Then 
on Christmas Day everybody will go to church. 
There the men and boys will sit at one side of the 
church and the women and girls at the other side, 
but all together will sing Christmas hymns with 
Norwegian words, and feel very glad they are 
alive ! 

On the first Monday in Lent the children have 
a grand frolic; that is supposed to be the one time 
in all the year when they may do any sort of thing 
they choose. Just for fun, they sometimes get 
switches from the birch trees and carry them 
home to whip their father and mother. It is the 
same kind of make-believe w’hipping that children 
in our country sometimes get on birthdays — but a 
Norwegian father sometimes pretends it hurts him 
dreadfully, and promises to be very good all the 
rest of the year. 

These little people have never seen any very 
large city, but if you could talk together they 
would tell you about all sorts of good times that 
they have here at home. 

This is the way they say ‘‘ Good-morning ! How 
do you do? ’’ God morgen! Hvordan hdr De detf 

Perhaps they might ask you Taler De Norsk? 
That means Do you speak Norwegian?’' 

Then one of them might question Hvad hedder 
Du? What is your name? ”) 

Very likely they might think your name very 
funny, because they had never heard it before. 
Boys here are often named Eric or Evert or Knut 
or Ole; one of the most famous violin players in 


Position 11. 


94 real children in many lands 

the whole world was a Norwegian named Ole Bull. 

In summer time these children might invite you 
to go with them and pick flowers and blueberries 
in the mountain pastures; there are no more deli- 
cious blueberries anywhere than grow on some of 
these Norwegian hills. Or the big boys would 
show you their pet pigeons or take you into the 
woods to hunt for rabbits and squirrels. The hills 
are steep and rough, so the smallest girls would 
probably rather stay here near the house and bring 
out their dolls for your entertainment. 

If they asked you to play “ Blind Thief '' with 
them, you might at first be puzzled, but, just as 
soon as the game was fairly begun, you would 
find it the same as our “ Blindman’s-buff.” 

There is another familiar game which they often 
play out here before the house. The words are 
of course Norwegian but the game itself is almost 
exactly like 

“ Here we go round the mulberry bush 
The mulberry bush. 

The mulberry bush, 

Here we go round the mulberry bush 
So early on Monday morning.'' 

Some of the best fun of the whole year comes 
in winter time. The bedrooms in this house are 
pretty cold then. The windows which you see 
now wide open will be shut tight, and have their 
panes covered with frost. Water-pitchers will 
often be found frozen in the morning, and a grand 
pillow-fight will be a good thing to keep one from 


Position 11. 


NEIGHBORS OF A NORSE WATERFALL 


95 


shivering when he first jumps out of bed to the 
bare wooden fxoor. But, after eating a nice warm 
breakfast, winter seems almost the best part of the 
whole year. There is always a good deal of snow 
lying over this field. That waterfall freezes on the 
rocks and looks like a tangle of giant icicles. Then 
these boys get out their skis — curving strips of 
tough wood, each one nearly as long as the ‘‘ run- 
ner '' of a sleigh. The skis are fastened to the feet 
somewhat like skates ; then away go the boys over 
the snow-drifts, up and down the hills, never sink- 
ing into the snow at all ! It is the great desire of 
every boy in this part of Norway to be able to 
run fast on skis, to slide on skis down long slip- 
pery hillsides and even to jump with skis on his 
feet, from high rocks to snow-drifts down below, 
never falling but skimming lightly over the clean 
glittering snow with the speed of the winter wind 1 
There is a book called “ A Norse Boyhood,’’ 
which you will find full of interesting stories if 
ever you have a chance to read it. The author 
was a boy in Norway years ago, and afterwards 
became a professor in an American university. 


Position 11. 


A VILLAGE HOME IN SWEDEN 


There is hardly a country in the world that has 
so many lakes as Sweden. All over the kingdom 
there are big or little sheets of cool water lying 
nestled among low green hills, and they help make 
Sweden a beautiful place in which to live. One of 
the many lakes is about a hundred and fifty miles 
northwest of Stockholm. It is called Lake Siljan 
and possibly it may be marked on your school map. 
If not you can easily find where it lies, if you look 
at the scale of your map and measure off one hun- 
dred and fifty miles straight northwest from the 
kingdom’s capital. The country home which we 
are going to see is only a few minutes’ walk from 
the lake shore, in sight of its waters. 

12, Position in Stveden, An old well, vine-shaded 
porch and little folks at home, Lerdal 

There is the lake. You see for yourself it is 
so near that these girls can easily run down there 
at almost any time to play. The little building that 
shows through the tree-tops is a boat-house. If 
you look closely you can see at the right a long, nar- 
row wooden pier which connects it with the shore, 
though the shore-end of the pier is hidden by the 
corner of the farmhouse. 

Those gay striped aprons are worn by almost all 


A VILLAGE HOME IN SWEDEN 97 

the girls and young women in this special part of 
Sweden. The big sister’s high-pointed black vel- 
vet cap is another pretty thing which older girls 
always like to wear with one of the gay aprons. 
Years and years and years ago the great grand- 
mothers of these girls wore just such caps and 
aprons on Sundays and holidays, and the fashion 
is so becoming that it lasts even now. In other 
parts of Sweden they have slightly different styles 
of dress, all pretty, but varying enough so that 
one who understands such things knows at once 
where a girl’s home is. At Leksand, for example, 
a few miles from here on the shore of the same 
lake, girls wear round caps, and their aprons have 
bright colored stripes running up and down instead 
of cross-wise. 

Almost all the village houses and farmhouses 
around here have their outside walls painted a 
rather dark red. With green grass and trees all 
around such a house and green vines climbing over 
its sunny porch, it looks so cosy you can well un- 
derstand why a Swedish child should think home the 
best place in the world. 

Most of the furniture inside a Swedish home 
of this sort is like what people use in the United 
States, though sometimes the children’s bedsteads 
are wooden shelves built by a village carpenter at 
the side of their room. Beds laid on those shelves 
and made up with nice clean sheets are as com- 
fortable as anybody need ask for. 

If you were to go into the kitchen when this 
biggest girl is helping mother make bread, you 


7 


Potltioa 13. 


98 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

would find that very different indeed from anything 
you know at home. Swedish mothers do not often 
have cooking stoves or “ ranges ” like ours, made 
of iron. The oven in which this girl does her bak- 
ing is a sort of closet with very thick walls made 
of stone or brick and plaster, with an iron door in 
front. A wood fire is built inside the oven and 
kept burning a long time until the oven’s thick walls 
are thoroughly hot; then the coals and ashes are 
all shoveled and swept out, leaving the oven clean; 
the dough is put in, the oven-door is shut tight, and 
the bread bakes as nicely as one could wish. 

Did you ever eat Swedish bread? If not, that 
would be another surprise. It is made in thin, flat 
sheets, about the size and shape of a dinner plate. 
It is good too. Especially when you have been out 
fishing in the lake, or when you have spent the fore- 
noon in a hillside pasture, picking wild strawber- 
ries, a bowl of milk and a big piece of crisp Swe- 
dish bread do taste good ! 

There are schools in all the villages and Swedish 
boys and girls go to school at least until they are 
fourteen. They have lessons of the same kinds as 
our own, including manual training, and singing 
and gymnastic drill, but of course they study a 
great deal more about Swedish geography and his- 
tory than about American geography and history. 
Some of the most interesting and exciting stories 
of Swedish history are about things that happened 
four hundred years ago in this very part of the 
kingdom, around Lake Siljan. At that time a 
Danish monarch was ruler of the land, though most 


Pofitloii IX 


A VILLAGE HOME IN SWEDEN 


99 


of the people wanted a Swedish prince named Gus- 
tavus Vasa to be king. Prince Gustavus (or Gus- 
tav) was for a time kept in prison by the followers 
of the Danish rulers, but he escaped and came in 
disguise to this lakeside district to find men to help 
fight for the independence of the kingdom. It was 
all very romantic. The preparations for war had 
to be kept as secret as possible. Danish soldiers 
suspected something and came searching for the 
escaped prisoner, but the people were loyal and 
would not tell. The prince wore a farmer’s clothes 
and made himself look like one of the country neigh- 
bors. Meetings were held at night to talk over plans 
for the war and to make arrangements about sup- 
plies of muskets and ammunition; then, when all 
was ready, the farmers and their grown up sons 
marched away to fight as soldiers for Sweden and 
for Gustav. The women and girls could not go 
off to battle, but they did their full share just the 
same. The heavy work of the farms was left for 
them to see to, as well as the housework and the 
dairy work, the spinning and weaving, the knitting 
and sewing. It was a hard time for everyone, but 
nobody grudged the labor; for the result of it was 
the independence of Sweden and the establishment 
of Gustav as king. 

The long summer vacation is the pleasantest time 
of year, for then one can be out-of-doors almost 
all the time. It is fun to be here in haying time. 
Then the tall grass is cut in big, sunshiny fields, 
making the most delicious smell as it dries, form- 
ing hay for the cows’ winter fodder. Swedish 


PMltloa la. 


100 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

farmers do not let the newly cut grass lie on the 
ground to dry. When the father of this family 
is ready to make hay he will carry out into the 
field those tall poles that you see with the projecting 
pegs or short arms, and set them in the ground like 
tall posts several feet apart. Then he will lay those 
other long poles horizontally on the stout pegs, one 
long bar above another with spaces between them; 
when all is ready the thing looks like a section of 
very high rail fence. The long grass, after being 
cut, is gathered up by hand and stuffed into the 
open spaces of the big rack to dry as the warm 
breezes blow over it. 

Working in the hay field is warm business, and 
when the men and boys come back to the house at 
supper time they are glad to wash their sunburned 
faces and necks and arms with water from the well. 
Did you ever see just such an arrangement for 
drawing water ? It was once quite common in some 
parts of the United States. That very big, long 
beam of wood is even longer than it looks. It 
reaches down to the ground beyond the upright 
post on which it is balanced. The balance is pur- 
posely made uneven, so that it will naturally place 
itself with one end slanting down while the end 
with the dangling rope slants up in the air. When 
that girl at the well wants to draw water, she opens 
the wooden cover of the well at her feet and pulls 
downward on the rope, so as to let that bucket go 
far down and fill with . water. Then the heavy 
beam, which has been drawn down, goes back by 


Peiltion 13. 


A VILLAGE HOME IN SWEDEN lOI 

its own weight to the position where we see it now, 
pulling up the full bucket. 

Sunday is one of the pleasantest days in the week 
at a Swedish country village. The nearest church 
may be two or three miles away, but there is a horse 
with an open carriage to take father and mother, 
and boys and girls enjoy the walk, especially on 
a summer Sunday, when flowers are blooming by 
all the roadsides and birds are singing in every tree. 
People who live near some part of the lake-shore 
often go to church in boats, finding it a shorter 
and pleasanter journey to row rather than to walk 
or drive over the winding roads. In many places a 
number of families go into partnership and have one 
very long “ church boat ” in which twenty or thirty 
people may sit at one time, while half a dozen men 
do the rowing. 

If you were to come visiting here in midsummer, 
you would be amazed to find how long the day- 
light lasts. You could sit on the grass here and 
see to read a story-book at ten o’clock in the evening. 
It is not yet dark when you go to bed, and the sun 
rises between two and three o’clock in the morning. 
On “ midsummer night ” or St. John’s eve, — the 
night between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth 
of June — hundreds of people do not go to bed at 
all, but spend the whole night at a neighborhood 
picnic party. A tall pole, somewhat like a May- 
pole, is set up and trimmed with green leaves, flow- 
ers and flags. People dance all sorts of pretty 
country dances, sing patriotic songs, row on the 
lakes, play games and eat all sorts of cakes and can- 


PositioB 13. 


102 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


dies. If the weather is good and there are no clouds 
over the sky, it does not grow really dark at all; 
the sun goes down in the northwest so very late 
that there is time for only a short interval of pale 
twilight before it rises again in the northeast, and 
another day begins. 

In winter time, when that lake is covered with 
ice, and when snow lies deep and white over all 
these hills, the night takes its turn at growing longer 
and longer. The sun is slower and slower about 
getting up in the morning. Children often start 
for school before sunrise, and, as Swedish winter 
evenings begin by two in the afternoon, they return 
home early. Then they have a long time to sit 
around a big lamp in the family living room, study- 
ing next day’s lessons, or playing games. A good 
many boys learn enough Sloyd at school to give 
them a good start in wood-carving and cabinet- 
making. These girls learn to knit and embroider. 
They have plenty of interesting story-books in 
Swedish; some are the same stories that you read 
in English, — Cinderella, Snow White and Rose 
Red, the Hardy Tin Soldier and ever so many 
others. Then there are stories written originally in 
Swedish just for Sweden’s own boys and girls. 

The Wonderful Adventures of Nils'' is one Swe- 
dish story which has been translated into English, 
so that boys and girls in the United States may 
enjoy it too. 


IN THE LAND OF THE CZAR 


If you have studied geography and read stories 
about Russia, you have heard of the city of St. 
Petersburg. Look on your map of Russia and 
you will find the city is far, far north, ever so much 
farther north than London or Paris or Berlin; it 
is on the river Neva, which flows into the Baltic 
Sea. The winters are very cold there, but in sum- 
mer time everything is green and blooming. 

The city buildings are much like those you have 
seen in other large cities. There are, of course, a 
great many shops and markets in St. Petersburg. 
There is one long street full of particularly fine 
shops where people like to go to buy their new 
clothes and furniture, books and pictures and jew- 
elry and all sorts of interesting things — they call 
it the Nevsky Prospekt. 

Suppose you have been walking down the Nev- 
sky Prospekt, looking at the gay shop-windows 
and the electric street-cars and the wagons and 
carriages and the passing people; then suppose 
you have turned off that street to a square on the 
south side where trees and flower-beds and wind- 
ing paths make a pleasant playground. Here you 
are in the square. 


104 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


13, JPosition in Russia, Monument of Catherine 
II and Alexander Theatre, St, Petersburg 

As you stand here facing all these children, the 
long, busy street is oflf behind you. You are fac- 
ing almost directly south. Away off behind you 
and beyond this city, Lapland reaches toward the 
Arctic Ocean. At your left Russia extends thous- 
ands and thousands of miles, across Europe and 
Asia. At your right, about one thousand miles 
away, is the place in Norway where you saw the 
country children and the waterfall. 

Are you wondering about the woman with the 
queer embroidered head-dress? She is a baby’s 
nurse — almost all nurses here in St. Petersburg 
dress like this in summer time, and they look very 
fine indeed. The embroidery on that cap is of 
gold and silver, and it has long ribbons hanging 
down behind. The baby thinks it great fun to pull 
those strings of beads around her neck and when 
he does it she tells him in Russian to let them 
alone and be good. Do you see the baby? I do. 
He was afraid when he saw so many people all 
around him and began to cry, so one of the little 
girls said she would walk about with him and 
keep him quiet. There she is now, over nearer 
the monument, between us and the tall lamp-post. 

Two of the girls standing here must be sisters, 
for their dresses and capes are alike and their hats 
are almost alike. Do you suppose they can be 
twins, or does one look older than the other? 
Have you noticed the girl who wears a kerchief 


IN THE LAND OF THE CZAR 10$ 

over her head in place of a hat? A great many 
women and little girls dress that way, here in Rus- 
sia. Do you see another girl with a shy little boy 
beside her? Very likely they may be sister and 
brother; she herself must be shy else she would 
not put her hand up to her mouth while we are 
looking at her. The little fellow’s cap is different 
from those of the other boys in sight. Almost all 
the St. Petersburg boys wear caps with flat tops 
and visors in front. They usually wear belted 
blouses, too, like that of the tall lad at the left. 

The gardener seems to be watching us. See he 
has been bending over the flower-bed, doing some- 
thing to the plants; that long heavy apron is to 
keep his trousers clean when he kneels on the 
ground, attending to his work. 

This is what one of these girls might say, in 
Russian, when she met one of her schoolmates 
here in the park : Dphroe utro, moya dorogaya 
Good-morning, my dear ”). 

If she wished to ask ''Where are you going?” 
she would inquire: Kuda ty idioshf 

And very likely the other girl might reply: Ya 
idu domoi (" I am going home ”). 

All these boys and girls, except perhaps the lit- 
tle fellow behind the nurse, go to school and 
know at least how to read and write. If their 
people can afford it, they will go through all the 
grades of the lower schools, studying arithmetic, 
too, and grammar and geography, and then go to 
a high school to study history and mathematics; 
and sciences and foreign languages. Russians are 


Position 13. 


I06 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

particularly good at languages and learn quite 
readily to speak French and German and English. 
Those who are most ambitious and most ready to 
work hard may go to the University after they 
have finished the work of the high schools, and 
study to become doctors and lawyers, civil en- 
gineers and chemists, or in some other way speci- 
ally useful to the world. They are bright, eager, 
young folks, these Russian boys and girls, and 
they hear a great deal of talk among their elders 
about how much their country needs faithful, 
hard-working men and women with educated 
minds, to help make things better for all the 
others. There is a great deal of poverty and 
misery now in some parts of the country, though 
you would not think so while you see only this 
pleasant square in front of the splendid theatre. 

Children play here in St. Petersburg many of 
the same games that are played in America and in 
England. In winter they have great fun skating 
on the frozen river and the canals and ponds — 
everybody skates here, even the dignified grown- 
up people. The little folks have sleds, too, and 
go coasting down such hills as they can find — 
there are not many natural hills, here in the city, 
but sometimes artificial hills are built of planks 
and covered with snow on purpose for sliding. 

Sometimes the winter weather here is very, very 
cold. Snow lies deep over these garden beds, and 
anybody who stood loitering by this fountain 
might find his nose freezing! People who have 
ever been in Minnesota or Dakota in mid-winter 


Position 13. 


IN THE LAND OF THE CZAR I07 

would know what to do — they have the same rem- 
edy here. The best plan is to snatch a handful of 
snow from one of the drifts near by and rub the 
nose as hard as one can. Then the blood inside 
goes hurrying about its business and warms the 
face so that no great harm occurs. 

But it does hurt! 

At almost any time of year St. Petersburg boys 
are fond of wrestling. The girls love to dance, 
and both boys and girls learn to sing. There are 
beautiful songs written by Russians which these 
children know as well as you know America.” 

If the policeman will allow it, the girls like to 
play games in this park. One favorite for the 
little ones is like our game where different trades 
are acted by making motions. For instance, 
while they sing (in Russian), 

“ When I was a carpenter. 

And a carpenter was I, 

This way and that way 
And this way went I,” 

they make motions as if they were hammering 
nails. If the verse is 

“ When I was a soldier 
And a soldier was I, 

This way and that way 
And this way went I,” 

they pretend to shoulder guns or to stand very 
stiff and straight, giving the military salute to a 
make-believe officer. Most of these boys will 
really and truly be soldiers by and by, for a few 
years if not always. The law requires them to 


Position 13. 


I08 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

serve in the army if they are called upon, and 
every year a large number of grown-up young 
men do have their names drawn by lot, and they 
go off into camp and are drilled ready for the wars. 

Another game, which is very good fun because 
it gives a chance to run, is all about an old witch 
and a mother hen with a flock of chickens. The 
mother hen has the chickens beside her and says 
to the witch : 

“ What time is it, old witch? ” 

Ten o^clock.’’ 

“ What are you doing, old witch ? ’’ 

“ Building a fire to cook a chicken.’^ 

Where will you get the chicken? ” 

“ Out of your flock ! ” and the witch makes a 
dash at some “ chicken '' who seems easy to cap- 
ture. But every “ chicken ” has really been watch- 
ing sharply to see which one the witch is going 
to catch, and, when she makes up her mind, she 
finds the chicken has wings. Then there is a 
scampering, as you can imagine; and, after the 
first chicken is caught, the witch has to capture 
all the rest of the flock in the same way, one after 
another. 

If they forget where they are and run across 
these garden beds, that gardener will certainly 
make trouble for them. The running game will 
have to be stopped; then they may perhaps sit on 
the steps of that tall monument and tell stories 
and riddles. They know quantities of delightful 
fairy stories; some are in printed books which 
they have had given them for Christmas and birth- 


Position iJ. 


IN THE LAND OF THE CZAR I09 

day presents; some are not printed at all, but are 
told by grandmothers and by nurses like this big 
woman with the apron and the parasol. 

If this nurse came from the country (probably 
she did), she knows ever so many stories about 
dpmovoys or house-fairies. A good many country 
people believe that each house has a queer little 
fairy living in it — a funny mite who looks like a 
wee old man in a red shirt. In the daytim.e he 
hides somewhere behind the kitchen stove, so that 
you almost never can catch a glimpse of him; he 
comes out only at night when all the family are 
asleep He is a good sort of fairy, keeping on 
the watch for fires or robbers; the only mischief 
he does is going to the stable and taking out the 
horses to ride on their backs, galloping around in 
the dark. The horses do not like that, for it 
breaks into their sleep and makes them tired for 
the next day, but the people in the house do not 
wish to interfere and offend the domovoy, so they 
make no objection; indeed, they take pains to leave 
some supper for him in the kitdhen every night 
before they go to bed ! 

If the girls were to sit on those steps and tell 
riddles, very likely these would be some of their 
favorites — see if you can guess them. (If you can- 
not, you may look for the answers at the end of 
this chapter, but you would better try first.) 

I. ‘‘ There is a beautiful writing on blue velvet, 
and to read that writing is given to no one— -not 
to priests nor to deacons, nor to wise moujiks/' 
(A moujik is a farmer or a workman). 


Pofltion 13. 


no REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

2. What is brighter than the light ? 

What is thicker than the forest? 

What is there that’s never silent ? ” 

3. “ There are three brothers. The first eats, 
but never is satisfied. The second drinks and has 
never enough. The third plays and dances and 
is never weary.” 

If one of these girls should be going through 
this square at sunset and should see the new moon 
over the trees, she would very likely say “ Young 
moon, God give thee strong horns and me good 
health.” Some people here think it brings good 
luck to say that when they see the new moon, and 
those who know it has nothing to do with “ luck ” 
say it just for fun. 

When these young folks go home to dinner 
they are likely to have some things that you would 
think very strange. Very often they have fis’h 
soup; sometimes it is cabbage soup with barley 
in it. Now and then they have a soup made with 
beer and herring and cucumbers. You might not 
like that, because it is so different from the things 
you have at home, but they consider it very nice 
when they come running in from school, as hun- 
gry as can be. Mutton and chickens and eggs are 
cooked in Russian kitchens in about the same 
ways as in ours. There are sometimes pies made 
of fish and raisins and those are quite delicious. 
In every home they drink a great deal of tea — 
everybody drinks tea here; it is not very strong 
but it is usually very hot, and they never put milk 
or cream into a cup of tea — a Russian child would 


Position 13. 


IN THE LAND OF THE CZAR III 

think that very disagreeable. What they like in it 
is a lump of sugar and a slice of lemon. Very 
likely you too have seen tea served in that way, 
for people in our own country have lately learned 
to like this Russian fashion. 

Here in St. Petersburg, and indeed all through 
Russia, people are very fond of hot baths. Some- 
times the bath-rooms are small, separate buildings 
beside the house; sometimes people go to large 
public bath-houses and pay for the bath. A part 
of the time the bath-room is made very, very hot 
and damp so that it is full of steam; then the per- 
son is doused with cold water and rubbed till he is 
all glowing warm again. Sometimes a stranger 
does not like the custom the first time he tries it, 
but, when he becomes used to it, he finds a Rus- 
sian bath keeps him delightfully clean and makes 
him feel strong and well and alive to the very ends 
of his fingers and toes. 

Some of the best times for these little Russians 
come at Christmas and Easter, when presents are 
given and there are special holidays. A week be- 
fore Easter people give each other twigs of willow 
and children like to plant theirs and make them 
grow. There is a special wish that goes with the 
gift of a pussy-willow twig; it is “ Be tall like the 
willow, and healthy like the water, and rich like 
the soil.” Sometimes the planted twigs do take 
root and grow into trees — there are some beauti- 
ful willow trees in a park not far from St. Peters- 
burg, which were planted many years ago by a 
little daughter of the Czar of those times. It was 


Poiltloa 13* 


1 12 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

a long while ago, and since then the little Grand 
Duchess (that is what they called her) has grown 
up and married an English prince and has children 
of her own. 

Do you know that Easter and Christmas here 
do not come at exactly the same time as our 
Easter and Christmas? Here in Russia the year is 
divided into months and weeks just like ours, but 
every date comes nearly a fortnight later than 
ours; that is the way the Russians prefer to reckon 
dates. It is just as if one were to keep his clock 
a little slower than other people’s clocks. If you 
were to spend a Christmas in England, you would 
have plenty of time to come over here to St. 
Petersburg and have a second Christmas with 
these boys and girls, at a time when English and 
American calendars call it the first week in Janu- 
ary ! 

When the boys and girls go to church here in 
St. Petersburg they kneel or stand all through 
the long service — everybody does so, even the 
Czar himself. The men and boys stay at one side 
of the church and girls at the other side. It would 
not be good manners for a girl to stand beside 
her brother, unless, indeed, he were a very little 
brother and she had to take care of him. There 
are no organs or other musical instruments in the 
churches, but the singing — always done by men 
and boys — is very beautiful, for the singers have 
fine voices and they are usually well trained. 

Some of the most beautiful music that we our- 
selves hear in churches or at fine concerts has 


Position 13. 


IN THE LAND OF THE CZAR II3 

been written by Russians either here in St. Peters- 
burg or in other cities in other parts of the land. 
One bit of old Russian music some of you have 
heard many times where you live at home, though 
perhaps you did not know it was Russian. It is 
often used for singing English words. This is the 
way it goes: — 




Answers to Riddles 


[ The sun. 

I. The stars at night. 2. ^ The stars. 

( The sea. 


( Fire. 

3. •< Earth. 
( Water. 


Position 13. 


HELPING FATHER IN FAR-AWAY 
AUSTRIA 


If you would like to know the kind of country 
you are to visit next, ask your map of Europe. 
First look for the great empire of Austria-Hungary 
and then find the part of that land which reaches 
farthest towards the west. It is a comer of the 
empire lying between Germany and Italy, with 
Switzerland for its western neighbor. 

Does the map make you expect to see a level 
country there, or a land of hills and mountains? 
There are not many railways through that part of 
Austria. Railway trains do take travellers to the 
largest towns, but those who wish to see the pret- 
tiest country roads and villages ride in carriages 
and stage-coaches, or else take their bicycles and 
go flying down the hills on their own wheels. But 
where there is a hill to go down there is a hill to 
go up, and that means a good deal of walking as 
well as riding. That is pleasant, too, for it often 
gives one a good chance to see more of the people 
who live in the neighborhood. 

Now what we are to do is to stand beside one 
of the steep hill roads in Tyrol, as that western 
corner of Austria is called. We shall see some 
boys and girls coming up the hill on their way 
home from the mill. 


HELPING FATHER IN AUSTRIA 11$ 

14:, Position in Tyrol, An Austrian hamlet, Val 
Ampezzo 

It is a pity they are so shy! The brother and 
sister pulling at the front of the cart will not look 
up. The sister pushing from behind is not quite 
so shy, but even she does not like to look stran- 
gers straight in the face. 

The sacks in the cart hold flour which they are 
taking home to the mother for making into bread 
and cakes. In America and England flour is usu- 
ally bought at the shops, already ground and 
packed in sacks or barrels; so it is in all the large 
towns in Austria. But up here, among the Tyrol 
mountains, each father has a farm and raises 
wheat, rye and barley in his own fields. Some of 
those very fields at the other side of the road may 
have raised crops of barley, though some of them 
are hay-fields. 

After the grain in some field near here was tall 
and ripe, the stalks were cut and the grain was 
threshed or beaten out of the ears, and poured 
into big chests or bins in the house where these 
children live. Then one day the mother found 
she needed more flour, so these sacks were filled 
from a bin and the children drew the cart to the 
mill. The kernels were ground between revolv- 
ing stones until the grains all turned to powdery 
flour. And now here is the grist in sacks, on the 
way home. 

The load is pretty heavy — that is evident; all 
three of the children will be tired when they do 
reach home, and as hungry as bears, too. 


Il6 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

The shoes these children wear are thick and 
heavy, you see, so as to bear a good deal of walk- 
ing and running before they are worn out. If 
they were not stout and strong they would not 
last long, for the children are always busy at some 
sort of work or play, and their shoes never have 
a chance to rest except at night. 

Those are felt hats that the children wear. The 
kerchief around the neck of the shy little girl has 
all sorts of bright colors in its border — green and 
red and blue. How pretty the full white sleeves 
are, reaching to the elbow! Almost all the girls 
and women here in Tyrol wear such sleeves; see, 
the young woman with the rake wears the same 
kind, and so does her mother. 

These grown-up people are not the mother and 
sister of the children; they are neighbors who have 
overtaken the little folks on the way. They have 
been at work in a hay-field near by. A good many 
of the men in this neighborhood go away to earn 
money as laborers in other parts of Austria dur- 
ing the summer, so the women and girls learn to 
do all sorts of outdoor work just as if they were 
men and boys. 

The young woman with the rake can do other 
things, too, which might surprise you; she can 
speak four languages — German, French, Italian 
and even a little English! You see, people are 
not necessarily dull or stupid because they live in 
a country place like this, far up among the moun- 
tains. German she has always known, because her 
people spoke that language at home when she was 


position 14. 


HELPING FATHER IN AUSTRIA 117 

a child. Italy is not far away beyond those moun- 
tains; she has known people who came from Italy 
and learned from them to talk Italian. French 
and English too she can understand, because she 
has improved every chance to learn words and 
phrases from foreign travelers, or from neighbors 
who have traveled and then come back home to 
this village. 

Have you noticed the odd shape of the shade- 
hat that she wears? It is a favorite kind of hat 
in this part of the country. She too has a ker- 
chief pinned over her bright red waist; the mother 
wears one kerchief about her neck and another 
on her head. People are very fond of pretty ker- 
chiefs here and often have them for presents when 
Christmas or a birthday comes around. 

The house where these children live is built just 
like those other houses that you see in the valley. 
The houses look at the first glance as if they were 
just scattered about in the fields, but, if you look 
sharply, you will see that a road goes winding 
through the valley. One turn in the road is in 
plain sight between the house-roofs, almost 
straight over that big wooden rake which the 
young woman is carrying. 

The houses are of wood with stone basements. 
Notice how the eaves project like piazza roofs, 
sheltering the doorways from rain. And have you 
seen how many of the houses have balconies and 
stairways on the outside? Those galleries or bal- 
conies are often used for drying grain or fruit. 

If you were to visit one of those houses you 


Position 14. 


Il8 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

would find everybody very kind and friendly, but 
there would be no fine carpets and elegant furni- 
ture, for this is a town of plain farmer folks with 
little money to spare. You would probably have 
bread and milk for supper — perhaps some deli- 
cious cheese. The house-mother or some nice 
girl would bring the milk in a big, clean bowl, 
and say, as she gave it to you, Wiinsch wohl zu 
speisen; that means “ May you eat with good ap- 
petite ! ” If your visit is made on a summer day 
like this, most likely some of the children will 
have gathered a dishful of ripe, juicy blueberries 
or blackberries, and they are very nice to eat with 
thick, sweet cream. 

After supper probably a few of the near neigh - 
bors may come in and there may be some music. 
A good many of the boys and young men here 
play the violin; still more can play the zither. 
Sometimes people clear away the chairs from the 
big living-room after supper and the neighbors 
come in for a dance. Sometimes a girl with a 
sweet voice will sing and her friends join in a 
chorus. 

In winter it is cold up here among the moun- 
tains and snow lies over this road in deep drifts. 
Then mother or one of the girls builds a roaring 
fire in a great tall stove in the living-room — a 
stove as tall as a very tall bookcase, covered not 
with iron, but with earthenware tiles. It gives 
out a gentle, soft heat that keeps everybody com- 
fortable, and the girls sew or embroider or knit 
and the boys work at wood carving. Some of the 

Position 14. 


HELPING FATHER IN AUSTRIA II9 

boys in this town can do very nice carving of 
flowers and bears and chamois, on pieces of wood 
for handkerchief-boxes and glove-boxes. There 
is a large industrial school only a few miles away, 
where the government pays teachers to train 
clever boys so that they may do really beautiful 
work, worth a good deal of money. 

A part of every year these children go to a 
school in the village where they study reading and 
spelling and writing and arithmetic. Their school- 
books are printed in German words. They have 
lessons in geography and history too. The school- 
master does not often tell them about England or 
America, but, for that matter, our school-books 
never say much about this lovely land of Tyrol. 
If you think it strange they do not know about 
George Washington, they would think it strange 
that you did not know about Andreas Hofer. 

Did you ever hear of their favorite hero? 
Everybody here knows his story. 


Andreas Hofer was a young countryman who 
had kept a small hotel not very far from here. He 
led the Tyrolese people a hundred years ago, when 
they were fighting to prevent Napoleon's soldiers 
from coming in here to take possession of the 
country. The Tyrolese loved their Austrian em- 
peror, and said they would not have anybody else 
to rule their land. When they asked Hofer to be 
their general and governor he said : 

All who want to be my brothers-in-arms must 
fight for God, emperor and country as brave, good 
and honest Tyrolese. Those who don't care to do 
that had better go home. My comrades-in-arms 
won't leave me, nor will I leave you, as true as my 


Position 14. 


120 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

name is Andreas Hofer. Now IVe said it and 
you’ve seen me ; and so — God bless you ! ” 

The Tyrolese were splendid fighters. Every 
man carried a gun, and every boy too, who was 
big enough to march with his father. Even the 
girls took part in the war; for once, when Hofer 
wanted to capture some cannon belonging to the 
enemy, he hid a number of soldiers in loads of 
hay. Girls drove the hay-wagons close up to the 
enemy’s lines, and nobody suspected that anything 
serious was about to happen, when, behold! At 
just the right instant out flashed the Tyrolese 

rifles, and that was the end of the foreign 

artillery-men I 

In those old times the soldiers used to camp on 
mountain-sides like those you see just ahead, and 
signal from one height to another by building fires 
at night. They fought nobly for their emperor, 
but Napoleon conquered, and at last Hofer was 
taken prisoner. The enemy’s men carried him 
over the mountains into a town of northern Italy, 
and there he was shot by the French soldiers. 

These children all know a song that tells about 
the brave man’s end. This is a part of the song : — 

“ At Mantua in chains 
The gallant Hofer lay. 

At Mantua, the foe 

Took his brave life away. 

They bade him humbly kneel — 

He answered, * I will not ! 

Here standing will I die 
As I have stood and fought. 

Upright I’ll stand within the trench. 

And cry Long live my Emperor Franz! 
Heaven guard my Tyrol land I ’ ” 

But that was long ago. Now the Austrian em- 
peror is once more the ruler of the country. 


Position H. 


IN THE LAND OF GREEK HEROES 

Every year grown-up people from the United 
States, from England, from France, from Ger- 
many, make journeys to Greece, because they have 
heard and read so many interesting stories about 
Greek history or because they want to see all that 
remains now of the beautiful buildings which Greek 
people long ago used to construct. With the help of 
our stereoscope we too will go to Greece, and we 
will choose a place where there are crowds of 
people. If you want to know just where the place 
is, look for Sparta on your map. You will see the 
country is divided almost in two by a long gulf 
of water. The town of Sparta is in a valley in the 
southern half of Greece, with high mountains on 
both sides. We shall stand so that we look west- 
ward toward the mountains. 

15, JPosition in Greece, Villagers and country ~ 
men on a market day in Sparta 

There are shops on this street where one might 
make purchases at any time, but this is a special day 
when peddlers come to town bringing all sorts of 
things not usually found in the shops ; farmers and 
their wives have brought in hens and ducks, vege- 
tables, cheese and eggs. Shepherds and cowherds 
have led in or driven in animals that they wish to 
sell. One farmer’s wife we see has brought a pig. 


122 real children IN MANY LANDS 

That white goat and its long legged kid were prob- 
ably raised in some pasture on the side of the moun- 
tains which we see ahead. 

The clothes these Greek boys wear are not very 
different from what we see around home, but they 
were not bought at shops. Nearly every suit was 
made by some mother or grandmother. Even the 
cloth for trousers and jackets was woven at home 
out of yarn spun by hand from sheep’s wool. Greek 
women and girls do at home a great deal of that 
sort of work which we in America have done for us 
in big mills and factories. That is one reason why 
there are so few women in sight just now. They 
are too busy to come out and see what is going on. 

If you could listen to the chatter here you would 
not understand much of it, for most of the Sparta 
people talk Greek. It is not precisely like the Greek 
which our big boys and girls study in high schools 
and colleges, but differs from that somewhat as 
your own English when you are playing baseball 
or blindman’s buff differs from the English of your 
favorite Bible stories. There are a few men here 
who can speak English as well as Greek ; they have 
been to the United States, worked hard and saved 
their money, and come back to live in Sparta where 
they were born. Some of these boys have heard 
them tell great stories about what there is to see in 
Boston or New York or Chicago, and about the 
wonderfully fine opportunities there are in America 
for people who are willing to work. No doubt 
some of these very boys plan to emigrate as soon 
as they are old enough. The farms about here are 


PofltlOB 15 . 


IN THE LAND OF GREEK HEROES 


123 


small : the land is not very good ; there are no big 
mills or factories or shops where one can earn 
money. It really is quite necessary for many people 
to go away somewhere else. 

But meanwhile the boys and girls find plenty 
of things to do. Girls are not usually sent to school. 
If a father is fairly rich he may send his daugh- 
ters to a convent school where nuns give the les- 
sons. A girl at a Greek convent learns to sing and 
to play the piano, to speak French and to do beauti- 
ful fine sewing and embroidery. But most girls 
stay at home, learning from their mothers how to 
keep house. They know nothing about geography 
and history, but they do know how to make a heap 
of wool into a pair of warm winter stockings. 

Most of the schools here are meant only for boys. 
The lessons are all in Greek, and the Greek alpha- 
bet is different from our own, so their books do not 
look much like ours ; but, if you heard Greek words 
pronounced, you would find that some familiar 
English words sound quite like Greek. And there 
is a good reason for it — those English words were 
made “ on purpose,” out of Greek words. “ Tele- 
phone ” was made in that way, out of tiJXc, which 
means far away,” and tfxovrj which means voice ” 
or “ sound.” 

The public schools here in Greece are not entirely 
free, like ours. Fathers have to pay for the les- 
sons. If a boy’s father can let him go a good many 
years he has a chance not only to learn the ordi- 
nary lessons in reading and arithmetic and geogra- 
phy but also to study Greek history; and then he 


Position 15. 


124 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

knows that in old times the men and boys of 
Sparta, his own home town, did some of the 
bravest deeds that ever were done. One story that 
everybody likes to remember tells how a small regi- 
ment of Spartan soldiers, under their general, Leo- 
nidas, once marched from here over into the north- 
ern part of Greece, to help drive back a much 
larger army of Persians, who wanted to take pos- 
session of the whole country. The Persians were 
good fighters, but the Greeks were better still. It 
was only by a trick that the enemy gained an ad- 
vantage. They found a secret path over some 
hills, and sent men across in the night, so as to sur- 
round the Greek troops. The Greek generals saw 
that the Persians were sure to win, and some of 
them told their men to hurry home and be safe; 
but the soldiers from this town had a rule of their 
own that no Spartan was ever to run away. Leo- 
nidas and his men stood their ground and let the 
Persians come on. They fought until every man 
of their own regiment lay dead. Not one ever 
came home. 

Friends and neighbors went afterwards to the 
battlefield and buried the bodies of the heroes. 
Then they set up a monument, and carved upon it 
a Greek inscription, which said : O thou who 

passest by, go tell to Sparta that we who lie here 
obeyed her law ! ” 

One of the greatest stories of adventure that 
ever was written has to do with Spartan people. 
The most beautiful girl in the whole world, a prin- 
cess named Helen, had married Menelaus, King of 


Position 15. 


IN THE LAND OF GREEK HEROES 


125 


Sparta. A prince of Phrygia (his land is now part 
of Asiatic Turkey) stole lovely Helen from her 
husband and carried her away to his own home city, 
known as Ilion, or Troy. The Greek friends of 
Menelaus and Helen raised an army and went over 
to Phrygia to rescue Helen. There they fought 
for years and years before they were able to get 
into the walled city of Ilion, where she was a cap- 
tive. Very likely you yourself have read parts of 
the exciting story of that Trojan war. The 
Greeks themselves call the story the Iliad (from 
the city’s name, Ilion) ; and every year it is still 
read in Greek by students in colleges all over the 
world. 


Poaition 15. 


BEING A BOY IN CONSTANTINOPLE 


There is an old fairy story about a magical car- 
pet and how it went traveling. If you were the 
owner of that carpet (probably it was a big rug 
covered with beautiful designs in gay colors) you 
could sit down in the middle of it and wish, and 
the most remarkable things would come to pass. 
You would have only to say “ I wish I were in 
Constantinople,” and then ! 

But such wonder-working rugs are not made 
nowadays. The thing most like it is your stereo- 
scope. It will take you now into a large yard be- 
longing to one of the Constantinople mosques. 
The sunshine in the yard is very bright; the shad- 
ows are very dark. For a moment or two you may 
not see everything quite plainly; but keep on look- 
ing and presently it will all be clear, even in the 
shady places. 

16. JPosition in Turkey. JBoys feeding pigeons 
in the court ofJBayezid mosque; Constantinople 

The boys have not extremely dark complexions. 
They look dark because the dazzling sunshine is so 
much lighter. The oldest boy has a cloth bag or 
sack full of wheat and barley, and he and his bare- 
footed chum have been tossing grain to the pi- 
geons. Sometimes they hold grain in their hands 


BEING A BOY IN CONSTANTINOPLE 


127 


and the birds fly up to perch on their wrists while 
eating. Now and then a pigeon will take a grain 
of barley from between a boy’s teeth. There are 
hundreds of pigeons living around this particular 
courtyard. 

All three of these boys wear caps of bright red 
felt, but the rest of their clothes are a good deal 
like those that are worn in your own town. 

The fathers of these boys are Moslem or Mo- 
hammedan Turks — ^that is, they are men who be- 
lieve that a certain Arabian prophet or teacher, 
about a thousand years ago, knew more about God 
and about religion than anybody else who ever 
lived. 

These boys have been taught to say their prayers 
five times every day and always to face in a cer- 
tain direction while they pray — that is, in the direc- 
tion of Mecca, the town in Arabia where the 
prophet Mohammed was born. The boys go to 
school in a building near here, close by a ‘‘ mosque ” 
or Mohammedan church. Their teacher is a man 
who has spent a great deal of time studying the 
Mohammedan Bible, which they call the ‘‘ Koran,” 
and he once made a journey to Mecca, so he can 
tell the boys something about travel in boats, or 
railway trains and on the backs of camels. Every 
Constantinople boy expects to go to Mecca some 
time when he is older. At the mosque school they 
are shown how to read and write, and how to 
reckon with figures. They learn by heart a great 
number of texts from the Koran, and even learn 
long chapters, so that they can repeat the words 


Poaition 16. 


128 real children in many lands 

without any mistakes. Most likely those boys with 
the grain-sack will never study any other lessons. 
They will soon leave school and go to work. 

If this boy in the white suit is particularly quick 
at his lessons, and, if his father can give him more 
of a chance in life, he may be sent to another 
school, where he can have an opportunity to learn 
French and German and English, and where he 
can study lessons of the same kinds that American 
boys study in upper grammar grades and high 
schools. (He has a French newspaper in his hand 
now, but we cannot be sure that he knows how to 
read it. No doubt his father reads French.) And, 
by and by, if he is both lucky and plucky, he may 
go to college. There is a fine college near Con- 
stantinople, where the professors are Americans 
and where the work and the fun are almost the 
same as in United States colleges. 

If you look for Constantinople, on your map of 
Europe, you can easily guess at some kinds of fun 
which these boy chums have on holidays. The map 
will show you that their home town stands close 
by the water. Parts of the city shores are bordered 
with wharves where steamships and boats of all 
sorts are always being loaded or unloaded, and any 
boy likes to watch that sort of work. A good 
many boys know how to row and to handle a 
sailboat. There are plenty of places were one 
may go swimming, and there are places where the 
fishing is first-rate, either from the banks or from 
a boat. 

Constantinople is a large city where almost a 


Position 16.' 


BEING A BOY IN CONSTANTINOPLE 


129 


million people live, so these boys have chances to 
see interesting sights. Soldiers often go march- 
ing through the streets. It is not uncommon to see 
donkeys and men carrying on their backs heavy 
loads, such as v^e should send in an express wagon. 
Peddlers go about carrying great jars of lemonade 
and selling it by the glass. Countrymen come to 
town with bears that they have caught in the moun- 
tains and trained to dance. Then, besides these un- 
usual things, there are moving-picture shows, such 
as boys like in our own towns. 

Turkish girls are not always sent to school. 
Some girls spend all the time with their mothers, 
learning to keep house, and some have teachers who 
give them lessons at home. Nearly all Turkish 
mothers wear long, loose cloaks, whenever they go 
out shopping or making calls, and they tie thick 
veils over their foreheads and cheeks, leaving an 
open place over their eyes so that they may see 
plainly where they are walking. That is the fash- 
ion for well-bred women, and of course every girl 
likes to be in fashion. She feels very grand and 
grown-up when mother buys her first long cloak 
and veil. Nice girls do not go about the streets 
alone nor with girl friends. They do visit their 
friends, but either the mother or the teacher or 
some maid goes with them and comes home with 
them through the city streets. In summer time 
they have a great many Saturday picnics at pleas- 
ant places beside the harbor, a little way out of 
town. Mothers and big sisters and baby brothers 
often spend long sunshiny afternoons under the 

9 


Position 16. 


130 real children in many lands 

trees. They carry luncheon from home, or they 
buy fruit and cakes, candies and ice cream at the 
picnic grounds. 

Turks do not often travel to the United States. 
They like their own country and they would feel 
quite homesick in our Christian land where there 
are no mosques. But if, when you are grown up, 
you ever make the long journey to Constantinople, 
somebody will be quite sure to take you to this 
mosque-yard where flocks of pigeons live. Every- 
body in the city knows the place. These boys will 
then be grown-up, too, but there will be other chil- 
dren in their place, scattering barley on the pave- 
ment, and other pigeons will be busy eating dinner. 


Position 16. 


STUDYING LESSONS IN PALESTINE 


There is an ol3 Bible story about a Hebrew 
boy named Samuel, the only child of his father and 
mother. They were very fond of him, and nat- 
urally they wanted to have him with them all the 
time; but, when they found he was needed to help 
a good priest take care of a holy shrine, they let 
him go away from home to live with the priest. 
Samuel’s mother used to go once in a while to see 
him and at every visit time she took him a pres- 
ent — often a new coat or cloak which she had made 
all herself, by spinning sheep’s wool into yarn, and 
weaving the yarn into cloth. 

The town where the father and mother and their 
one boy lived is in Palestine. You know of course 
where Palestine is, at the far eastern end of the 
Mediterranean Sea. If you were to make a journey 
there in the ordinary way, you would go by steamer 
to the town of Jaffa, on the Mediterranean seashore, 
and then travel about over the country, riding on 
horseback or on donkey-back, or perhaps on a tall 
camel. There are only a few railway lines in that 
part of Asiatic Turkey. 

A short distance north of Jerusalem is the town 
of Ramah, where Samuel was once a small boy. 
There are plenty of other boys in Ramah today, 
and some of them go to a school which is curiously 


132 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


different from American schools. We go through 
a gateway into a little yard beside a stone house. 
High stone walls are all around the yard, so that 
it seems almost like a room without any roof over- 
head. And there we find the boys. 

1 7 . Position in Palestine, lAttle folks studying at 
the village school in SamueVs home town, Ramah 

They are all boys, though you might not think 
it, their clothes are so queerly different from those 
we are used to seeing. Most fathers and mothers 
in Palestine are Mohammedans and do not send 
their girls to school at all. They think it is not 
necessary for girls to know anything except how to 
carry water and cook dinners, to sweep and wash 
and sew. 

The grown-up man who is laughing is a visitor. 
The other man, just behind him, with the fez cap 
and the striped belt, is the boys’ teacher. All the 
boys in that circle are studying their lessons aloud, 
and they make a fearful noise, as you can well 
imagine, but the teacher likes it. If a boy keeps 
saying a lesson over and over the teacher is at least 
quite sure of his being busy and not getting into 
mischief. 

Do you see what curious books they hold in their 
hands? Those are pieces of wood with words 
painted on them in black ink or drawn with black 
crayons. Each “ book ” has a handle by which to 
hold it, so that warm, moist fingers may not rub 
out the lesson. Arabic letters are quite different in 
shape from our own a, h, c, d, and so on. You 


STUDYING LESSONS IN PALESTINE 


133 


could make nothing out of one of these books, be- 
cause you would have no idea what sounds are 
represented by the crooked little black lines and 
dots. Even if you did know the sounds for which 
the letters stand, you would not know what the 
Arabic words mean. For that matter, some of 
these boys do not have much idea what their les- 
sons mean. The teacher seldom explains a hard 
word or a new word. If a boy learns long sen- 
tences by heart, so that he can say them without 
looking on a book, he is thought to be a very fine 
scholar! The sentences that boys do learn are 
almost all prayers or parts of the “ Koran — that 
is the Bible or sacred book of Mohammedan peo- 
ple; so the school work amounts to learning a long 
Mohammedan catechism and a good many Mo- 
hammedan Bible verses. 

The teacher gives lessons in good manners, also. 
Boys practice making a bow and saying Kayf hal 
kum, Effendum ('"How do you do. Sir”) and 
Ma'as Salamyeh, Effendum ("Fare you well. 
Sir”). For occasions when they need specially 
formal courtesy, they learn long Arabic phrases 
that mean " Good evening, noble sir, blessed with 
good luck. May heaven be praised for the sun- 
shine of thy honorable visit.” Allah yemesik bil 
kher is a respectful way in which to say to a grown 
person " May heaven give you a happy night.” 

If a boy gets thirsty in school-time the teacher 
will let him take a drink from that big earthen 
water jug which stands on the floor. When you 
look at the jug do notice also the striped coat which 


Potltlen 17. 


134 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

has been pushed back over the shoulder of the near- 
est boy. It was probably a coat somewhat like that 
which Samuel’s mother, in the Bible story, used to 
make every year, to replace the old outgrown one. 
Indeed, it may very likely have been a coat like 
that, with gay stripes, which a boy in another Bible 
story used to wear. You remember Jacob gave to 
his favorite boy, Joseph, a coat of many colors,” 
and the brothers Wfere jealous because it was hand- 
somer than their own. 

When school is done and these Ramah fellows 
run off to play, they have plenty of fun. They 
know several kinds of ball games, though they 
never saw baseball. They run races and are first- 
rate at leap-frog. The younger boys play with 
jackstones, and spin wooden tops and play marbles 
— only their marbles ” are usually dry, round 
nuts that have never been cracked. 

Then, after a while, they will be hungry enough 
to go home to dinner. The houses where they live 
are little stone buildings with whitewashed walls, 
and almost every home has a courtyard like this 
one where the school is held. Palestine houses have 
very few windows and their rooms are dark and 
uncomfortable, so dinners are usually eaten in the 
courtyard, where it is light and pleasant. When 
a boy does go home at dinner-time he finds a piece 
of straw matting spread over the ground, on which 
to sit during the meal. The mother or the older 
sister will have baked fresh bread — not big, puffy 
loaves, like ours, but thin cakes of barley flour, 
cooked by laying them on a sheet of hot iron over 


Position 17. 


STUDYING LESSONS IN PALESTINE 135 

a small fire on the ground. There will be a big 
bowl of boiled rice, and perhaps some ripe figs, 
dark-colored, soft and juicy. There will be no in- 
dividual plates, or forks or spoons. Father and the 
boys will wash their hands carefully before sitting 
down beside the rice-bowl; then they will eat with 
their fingers out of the one bowl. Sometimes there 
may be boiled lamb for dinner, but that, too, is 
always eaten with the fingers. A piece of bread 
is used like a spoon for serving one’s self with 
gravy. The mother and sisters eat their own meal 
afterwards, and usually finish all that is left. It 
certainly is a strange kind of family dinner, but 
these boys never saw any other kind. If you 
could invite one of them to your own house for a 
meal, he would think your chairs and dining-table 
the funniest contrivances he ever saw. As for a 
fork, he would not have the least idea what to do 
with it. 

When it is time to go to bed in the Ramah homes, 
there are few mothers who own a bedstead with 
white sheets and clean, soft pillows. These boys 
do not take off their clothes at night unless it is 
extremely hot weather. They just unroll some 
rugs from a bundle in the corner of the living-room 
and spread them on the floor; then they lie down. 
Maybe they think they would like to stay awake 
and plan some fun for the next day, but sleepiness 
creeps into their eyes before they know it. The 
walls of the room begin to grow dim before their 
eyes, like writing on their wooden books that is 
half rubbed out. The voices of older people seem 


Position 17 a 


136 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

to fade, growing fainter and fainter to drowsy 
ears. By and by the room and the older people’s 
talk and everything else around them seem to melt 
into one soft, dark, sleepy feeling, and — and — and 
that is all they know about it — until daylight comes 
once more. Then it is time to jump up and say to 
grandfather, Allah yesabbihak bil kher God grant 
thee a good morning ”). 


Position 17. 


EARNING FOUR CENTS A DAY IN 
AFRICA 


Any map of Africa in your geography will show 
where the city of Zanzibar stands, a little south 
of the equator, close by the east coast. Look a lit- 
tle farther inland and you will probably find that 
the map shows mountains up northwest of Zanzi- 
bar, between there and Victoria Nyanza lake. 
What we are going to do now is to stand in a great 
field in sight of one of the highest of those moun- 
tains, and watch a number of black boys at their 
work. 

18, Position in Africa, Picking coffee in Moschi 
province, German East Africa 

They call this part of the country “ German,’’ 
because the German government controls it, pro- 
tecting white people who come here for business or 
for pleasure, and making laws for the land. Of 
course, the whole country naturally belongs to the 
native black folks, but Germans have better heads 
for planning affairs and for managing affairs, so 
they are now directing everything in this particular 
part of Africa. 

See how thickly the branching coffee bushes 
grow all over this broad field. Whole families of 
Africans work here day by day, picking the ripe 
berries into those baskets, and carrying them to a 


138 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

place where they will be spread in the sun to dry. 
Each berry has two hard seeds, and it is from those 
seeds that our familiar drink is made. The hot 
sun blazes in such a dazzling way on the bushes, 
and the twinkling leaf-shadows are so dark, one 
can hardly see at the very first glance how many 
people are at work. But wait a moment; let your 
eyes get used to both sunshine and shadows, and 
you will soon be able to see plainly several more 
workers whom you had at first overlooked. 

These boys nearest to us are as black as soot, 
and their short hair grows in such close kinks that 
nobody could comb it out. They do not need many 
clothes. It is always hot weather in this part of 
Africa. The cotton cloth of which their few gar- 
ments are made was bought at a trading-post ( shop) 
kept by a German who has European goods for 
sale. It does not actually cost much, but these boys 
consider it quite elegant and expensive because they 
have to do so much work to earn it. Four cents is 
all that a small boy gets for working all day in this 
hot field. 

You could not understand a word of their talk 
with each other, though they can talk fast enough ; 
neither could they understand your English. The 
white man who now owns this land has foremen 
who do understand the native dialects and can tell 
the black folks in their own words what to do or 
where to go when they have picked these bushes 
clean. 

None of these boys ever saw a schoolhouse, un- 
less, perhaps, that oldest one has some time been 


Potltlon 18. 


EARNING FOUR CENTS A DAY IN AFRICA 139 

on an errand to one of the German missions near 
here. A few of them may possibly have been to 
one of the German mission churches. But most 
of the boys here know little and care little about 
white men’s ideas. They have heard from the old 
black men in their own village wonderful stories 
about wind and rain, about the sun and the moon 
and the stars, and those stories seem to them a 
perfectly good explanation for whatever happens 
around them. They see the sun move across the 
sky every day, and they are sure it must be a live 
thing. They hear the rustle of these coffee leaves 
when a wind passes, and they feel the wind brush 
their faces, and they are certain the wind is a live 
creature, too. Their grandfathers have told them 
about strange, powerful Spirits, that live in stones 
and in tree-trunks. Their little black heads are full 
of ideas like that, not true at all. 

The most splendid thing they can think of doing 
is to go some time a-hunting in the woods between 
here and that high mountain which you see in 
the distance. It is one of the mountains marked 
on your map, and is higher than any peak in our 
own United States, so high, in fact, that its summit 
reaches up into regions of the sky where the air is 
cold even close by the Equator. Those streaks of 
white on the mountain-top are deep banks of snow 
that never wholly melt. In woods near the foot of 
those mountains lions go prowling about, looking 
for smaller game that will be good for dinner. 
White men never venture into the woods without 
powerful rifles, ready to shoot at long distance. 


Pofitlon 18. 


140 real children in many lands 

But black men, without any rifles at all, have many 
a time killed lions with their own home-made 
spears — long, sharp-pointed poles, tipped with iron. 
A hunter who has proved himself shrewder and 
stronger than the very King of Beasts — he is a hero 
worth talking about! 

That is the feeling of these boys of Moschi. 
Most likely they themselves will never have a 
chance to earn such glory. White men are fast 
turning the familiar plains into coffee plantations, 
and even beginning to cut down parts of the for- 
ests. A railway is being built through this very 
district to carry loads of coffee to a seashore town 
where it can be transferred to ocean steamships. 
And before many years there will be no lions about 
Moschi. Perhaps, then, the stories told by black 
grandfathers to woolly-headed grandsons will relate 
wonderful things about the queer iron monsters that 
draw loads over the white men’s iron road. Queer 
monsters, indeed, the locomotives seem to them, 
spitting hot steam, breathing out clouds of black 
smoke, shrieking like giant beasts, and roaring as 
they move along, dragging heavy loads for the 
white men. 


Pofltloa 18. 


PLAYING HOP-SCOTCH IN INDIA 
AT THE OTHER SIDE OF 
THE WORLD 

You will need your map of Asia in order to 
find the part of India which you are about to visit. 
Look at the northernmost part of India and see 
how many mountains stand there. If you look 
very sharply indeed, you will see that a river be- 
gins away up there among the mountains and 
flows southwest until it joins the Indus. 

Beside that river, over on the northern side of 
the Himalaya mountains, is the Valley of Cash- 
mere, and in the valley is a city called Srinigar. 
The place to which you are going is in Srinigar, 
on a street near that very river which you find 
printed on your map. 

19. Position in India, Children are children the 
wide world around — little folks playing Hop- 
Scotch in Cashmere 

Did you ever play hop-scotch, standing on one 
foot and kicking a pebble from one space to an- 
other marked out on the ground? Then you 
understand at once what this boy is doing. 

How many children are there? All are boys 
except one. Her clothes are much like the boys' 
clothes, but her hair has not been cut and she 


142 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

wears bracelets on her little brown arms; do you 
find her? She likes playing with dolls better than 
hopping about on one foot, for girls here are not 
encouraged to play many lively games, but it is 
fun to watch the big boys. 

Some of these children live in the house with 
the little square windows and the others are 
friends come to play with them. If you wanted 
to enter the house you would go through that 
narrow passage to the little yard where the rugs 
and clothing are hung to air, and enter by a door 
at the ’rear, but there is not much to see inside. 
The floor is of dirt like the street here, worn down 
smooth and hard. There are no chairs, for when 
people sit down they squat on the ground just as 
they are doing now. There is not a bedstead nor 
a bureau about the place ; the family sleep on rugs 
spread upon the floor, and their best clothes are 
kept in a chest or a bag. 

The roof is covered with straw and dirt, and 
grass and flowers grow over it. You can see how 
slender tree branches have been fastened around 
it like a fence, to bind it safely in place and keep 
it from sliding off. Notice that odd little window 
where somebody is watching the game. The wall 
around the windows is of stone plastered over 
with mud which hardens in drying, but you can 
see for yourself that there is a framework of wood 
besides. 

Of course there are children here in Srinigar 
who live in finer houses and who wear better 
clothes, yet these boys and girls are not very poor. 


Position 19. 


PLAYING HOP-SCOTCH IN INDIA 


143 


They have enough to eat and enough to wear, and 
they are so used to their own ways of living that 
they never think of finding fault. When dinner 
is ready in that house with the little window, it 
will be chiefly rice, boiled by the mother in a brass 
pot over an open fire. Maybe there will be eggs, 
too, for a good many of the families along this 
street keep hens in the little courtyards behind 
the houses; on special holidays there is sometimes 
a feast of boiled chicken. Each boy will have his 
food in a little earthen bowl, and sit down on the 
floor to eat it. 

Look at the children’s heads and see whether 
their tight little skullcaps are exactly alike. Un- 
derneath those caps every boy has his hair shaven 
as closely as any American lad’s in midsummer. 
Every boy had his baby hair all cut off before he 
was three years old, and the hair was buried under 
some tree; only the little girl’s dark locks have 
been allowed to grow. 

How many of the boys do you think are more 
than seven or eight years old? Those older ones 
have probably been “ confirmed ” by the priest at 
their Hindu temple and made what the people 
call ‘‘ twice born.” The priest recites prayers be- 
fore the altar and ties loosely about the boy’s body 
a cord which he will always wear and guard from 
any accident. It is worn now under the clothes, 
passing over the left shoulder and under the right 
arm. The little ones of the family are glad when 
a brother grows big enough to wear the sacred 
cord,” because the day when it is first put on is 


Position 19. 


144 real children in many lands 

celebrated like a birthday with presents and frolics 
and particularly good things to eat — candied gin- 
ger and fruits and little cakes full of caraway 
seeds. The ceremony is only for boys — little girls 
do not wear the cord; but the good times are for 
all alike. 

The religion of the people here is very different 
from ours. A great many missionaries are sent 
to different parts of India from England and 
America to tell them about the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. 

Many of these little folks have been to school 
and learned to read the strange marks that peo- 
ple in this country make for certain sounds and 
words. They do not use the same letters that we 
use. If you were to show one of your school books 
to that tallest boy he would think the printed 
pages very queer and dull, just little black marks 
dotted over a piece of paper. He might like the 
pictures, but even those would show things all very 
new and strange to him. He and some of the 
other boys have learned enough arithmetic to 
count and to reckon money. The copper coins 
that they know best are the annay which is 
worth about two cents, the half anna (one cent) 
and the picCy which is only half a cent; besides, 
there are silver pieces worth four, eight, and 
sixteen cents. To have a whole silver rupee 
(thirty-two cents) is to be quite fine, for a rupee 
will buy quantities of ripe apples, pears and peaches 
at the market, or candy and sweet cakes enough' 
to treat all the boys in this part of the town. 


Positloa 19. 


PLAYING HOP-SCOTCH IN INDIA 145 

There are several ways in which they earn 
money. Some go out into the pastures to watch 
flocks of sheep. Some work with their fathers and 
older brothers, learning how to weave shawls and 
carpets. A few may, perhaps, help take care of 
the horses and elephants of the Maharajah of 
Cashmere, an Indian prince who lives near here 
in a fine palace with troops of servants. That is 
great fun, for there never was a live boy who did 
not like horses and elephants. 

These Srinigar boys do not expect to be very 
great or grand. They are very well contented 
just as they are. Some of them will learn to be 
gardeners and raise peas and beans, melons and 
vegetables of various sorts; but you never saw 
gardens so strange as there are here in Srinigar 
— 'actually floating on the water of the river like 
movable islands. The men who own them make 
rafts of tough grasses and lay earth upon the 
rafts; vegetables grow finely on such rafts, and 
a gardener can move his garden when he 
pleases. 

See this round-faced mite of a boy playing with 
the stones and dirt. (He has moved his plump fist, 
sifting dust through his fingers — that is why his 
hand looks blurred.) I wonder what kind of work 
he will do when he grows bigger. His father and 
mother tried to find out when he was a wee baby 
just beginning to take notice of things; they set 
him on the floor and laid a number of different 
objects around him to see which he would choose. 
They believed that if he chose an apple or a heap 

PofltiOD 19. 


10 


146 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


of rice he would be a farmer ; if he chose a pen he 
would be a student; if he reached out first toward 
a piece of cloth he would be a weaver; if he chose 
one of his mother’s bracelets he would be a silver- 
smith; if he reached out to a guitar he might be a 
musician; if he chose a bullet he would be a sol- 
dier, and so on. It would be interesting to know 
what kind of thing he did choose, although I do 
not suppose that will actually have anything to 
do with his real fortunes. 


Position 19. 


SCHOOLFELLOWS IN SUNNY 
BURMA 

Did you ever go visiting an unfamiliar school 
'where one of your friends goes every day? But 
you certainly never did visit a school in Burma. 
Very few white people know those schools at all. 
Here is a chance for you now. 

First let us see how far away from your home 
the school is kept. Get out your geography once 
more, and find Burma on the map of Asia. It is 
at the eastern side of the great Bay of Bengal. 
Your map will show you a great river, the Irawadi 
(or Irrawaddy), rising among the mountains along 
the border-line between Burma and China. From 
those mountains it runs down almost southward 
to the great Bay. Have you found it? Now look 
for the city of Mandalay, about half-way up the 
river. Notice that the line of the Tropic of Can- 
cer crosses the river a little way above Mandalay. 

The school we are going to visit is on the east 
bank of that very river, near the point where the 
map shows it crossed by the Tropic of Cancer. 

^O, Position in JBurma* Schoolboys and their 
priestly teacher having lessons out-of-doors be- 
side the Irrawaddy 

Isn't this a delightful place for a school? Think 
how different these tree-covered hills are from 


148 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

the stone-walled court in Palestine, where you 
found the little Syrians. 

There is the great river, just as we might expect 
to see it. We are facing up-stream, of course — 
that is, towards its far-off beginning among the 
mountains. The city of Mandalay is forty miles 
farther down-river, behind us. It may not matter 
much to you where Mandalay is, but it matters a 
great deal to these boys; some of them have been 
to the city with their parents and had the best 
time in all their lives, and the other boys hope 
they too may go there some day. 

These are all boys, though they do wear pieces 
of cotton cloth wrapped about them to look like 
short skirts, and most of them have long hair, 
braided and twisted into a knot on the top of the 
head. It is the fashion here in Burma for boys 
to wear these curious clothes and to wear their 
hair in this way until they are old enough to go 
through a ceremony somewhat like “confirma- 
tion.” 

The teacher sitting on the bank is a Buddhist 
priest who lives with a number of other priests in 
a monastery (priests’ house) near by. His robe is 
yellow — that is the color always worn here in 
Burma by priests of his religion. 

Which boy do you think is the youngest? I 
should say the one nearest to us. He is perhaps 
not more than seven years old. The one be- 
yond him at the right looks quite old — as much 
as twelve or fourteen. The one sitting with his 
back towards us is almost as old as that. This is 


Pofltlon 20. 


SCHOOLFELLOWS IN BURMA 


149 


a country school, so it happens that big and little 
boys are under the same teacher. 

I wish the children had some of their writing 
slates out here, for you would like to see them. 
The slates are slabs of wood painted black like 
tiny blackboards, and the scholars write on them 
with slate pencils. The teacher writes certain let- 
ters or words or sentences at the top of each slate, 
and the boys copy what he has written, each boy 
shouting aloud the names of the letters or words 
as he writes them. American and English teach- 
ers object to a boy’s talking aloud in school, but 
this teacher punishes a boy if he does mt talk 
aloud; if a boy keeps quiet the teacher does not 
feel sure that he is thinking about the lesson at 
all! 

If one of these boys reads carelessly or writes 
a bad, awkward hand, the teacher makes him 
march around the class, carrying a brighter boy 
on his back. That is as much as to say he is a 
stupid animal fit only to carry loads. It makes a 
boy dreadfully ashamed, for the others all laugh 
at him. 

The lessons they are studying here are quite 
different from yours. There is no work in arith- 
metic. The little counting and reckoning they 
need to know are picked up by watching people 
at home. Nobody will expect them to know the 
multiplication table or to reckon a problem in frac- 
tions. There are no geography lessons either. 
These boys have probably heard that there is a 
far-off place called England, for Englishmen quite 


Position 30. 


150 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

often come traveling through this town ; but 
where the country of the queer white-faced Eng- 
lishmen may be these little brown fellows have not 
much idea. Probably not one of them ever heard 
of America. Most likely the teacher himself does 
not know anything about our land. He and the 
boys are very fond of the lovely country right here 
and well satisfied with it. 

So these boys never have to learn map ques- 
tions nor bother their heads about the capitals of 
other lands. 

It is just the same with history. The only his- 
tory lessons they learn are stories about the life 
of the great Lord Buddha, a noble and kind- 
hearted prince who was born ever so long, long, 
long ago, over in India. He was the son of a rich 
and powerful family, but he cared so much about 
the poor and the sick and the wicked that he will- 
ingly gave up his beautiful home and made him- 
self a poor man too. He spent his whole life try- 
ing to find out how people could learn to be good, 
and to become free from sorrow and grief. Since 
he died the stories about him have been exagger- 
ated and so made more and more wonderful in 
the telling, until now they are like queer fairy 
tales; but these people believe the tales are all 
true and boys are sent to school to learn them. 

The Buddha taught people some things which 
we in other lands do not believe at all, but many 
of his sayings are true and good, like what we 
learn in our own churches and Sunday schools. 
The teacher repeats a saying and the boys repeat 


Potltion 20. 


SCHOOLFELLOWS IN BURMA 


I5I 

it after him, over and over, over and over, until 
they know long, long chapters of wise books all 
by heart. 

The teacher tells stories, too, and the boys learn 
those by heart. This is one which probably all 
these boys could repeat in concert in their own 
language : — 


Why Ants are Found Everywhere, 

“ All the animals of the forest came to the lion- 
king to pay him homage. The little ant came 
with the rest to bow down before the king of 
beasts, but the noblemen drove it away with scorn. 
When the chief of the ants heard of this, he was 
very angry, and sent a worm to creep into the ear 
of the lion and torment him. The lion roared 
aloud with pain and all the animals came running 
from every side to offer their services. But none 
of them could do any good. They could not get 
at the worm. 

At last, after many humble embassies, the chief 
of the ants was prevailed upon to send one of his 
subjects, who crept into the lion’s ear and pulled 
out the worm. Since that time the ants have en- 
joyed the privilege of living everywhere and in 
any country on earth, while the other animals had 
only certain special places assigned to them.” 

There are proverb classes too in this school. 
The brightest of these boys know long lists of 
Burmese proverbs that they can say without a 
single mistake. These are some of the favorite 
ones : — 

“ The more a man knows, the more luck he has.” 

“ If a cock ruffles up his feathers, it is easy to 
pluck him. If a man gets angry, he is done for.” 


PMitiofi 20. 


152 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

Constant cutting dulls the knife. The man 
who talks too much ceases to be wise.” 

“ A cow that can give no milk will kick. An 
ignorant man quickly loses his temper.” 

Very likely the boys may have been reciting 
some of these very proverbs just now, and having 
their pronunciation corrected by the teacher. 
Burmese words are almost always short and they 
have pretty, musical sounds, but they are hard to 
pronounce correctly, and one word sometimes has 
several entirely different meanings according to 
the way in which it is said. Kyoung, for instance, 
may mean a monastery (a house where these 
priestly teachers live), or it may mean a pussy-cat; 
it depends on a certain very slight difference in 
pronunciation which you could hardly recognize 
even if you heard it ! 

The recitations are not always out of doors, like 
the one we have just interrupted by our visit; in 
fact they are oftener inside a room in the priests’ 
house. In any case there are no chairs and no 
desks, the boys sit on the floor just as they are 
sitting on the ground now. But when it is recess 
time, the boys come out here on the hillside to 
play. 

The very smallest pupils sometimes play baby- 
fashion, making mud-pies, or they stick leafy 
twigs in the ground and make believe they are 
beautiful sharp-pointed pagodas like those you see 
over beyond this high bank. The older ones have 
games of their own. 

One of the games they like best is playing chin- 


Position 30. 


SCHOOLFELLOWS IN BURMA 


153 


lohn. You have a ball made of bamboo, hollow 
and light and elastic, almost like a ball of thin rub- 
ber, and the game is to keep it in the air all the 
time without once letting it fall to the ground. 
You must not touch it with the arm or hand at 
all (that is not fair when you play chin-lohn); you 
hit it with your knee or with your foot, your 
shoulder, your thigh or your cheek. It takes a 
clever boy to play it well, as you can imagine. 

Another game that they like better still is a 
little like marbles and a little like ninepins. They 
use big flat seeds to play with, and the game is to 
snap your seed so as to hit the biggest number 
of other seeds, set up in a certain way, in rows. 

These biggest boys can box pretty well, and 
they practice as often as»they can, for everybody 
here admires a clever boxer. 

I think that boy at the left of the group is sitting 
with one knee over the other in hopes we shall 
notice the tattooing on his legs; but, after all, we 
are not quite near enough to see it plainly. It 
hurts dreadfully to have colored patterns pricked 
into one’s legs with sharp needles, but all the boys 
around here have it done and the boy whose skin 
(from the waist down) is marked with the most 
beautiful figures of elephants and tigers and lions 
is greatly envied by all the rest. 

The boys say that if you have a Certain particu-^ 
lar pattern pricked in just the right way, it has a 
wonderful effect, so that ever afterwards the hard- 
est whipping does not hurt you a bit. Sometimes 
that would be convenient; Burmese teachers and 


Position 20. 


154 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

fathers are good-natured as a rule, but once in a 
while ! 

When the tattooing is once done, with blue or 
red or black ink let in under the skin, it lasts for- 
ever, so it is very important to choose the right 
patterns when the tattooing man comes around. 
Of course a boy does not have all his tattooing 
done at one time. He suffers the hurt in short 
periods, just as one does at home when teeth have 
to be filled at the dentist’s. 

Have you noticed that the tattooed boy wears 
bracelets too on his ankles? Evidently he is the 
child of prosperous people. 

When the teacher speaks to these boys he has 
to call them by their given names, because nobody 
has a surname or family name. There are special 
rules too about giving names to little babies. 
With us, boys are often named for their fathers 
or grandfathers or uncles, but here a boy is named 
always according to the day of the week on which 
he was born. There is a certain list of names 
proper for boys and girls born on Monday; the 
parents choose from certain other names for a boy 
or girl born on Tuesday, and so on. For instance, 
a Tuesday boy is sometimes called Poh Sin, which 
means ‘‘ Grandfather Elephant,” or San Nyohn 

Beyond Comparison ”). In order to be quite 
polite, however, you prefix Moung (“ Brother ”) 
to a boy’s name when you speak to him, and call 
him Moung Y oh (‘" Brother Honesty ”) or Moung 
Ohn Brother Cocoanut ”) or Moung Bah Too 
(''Brother Like-his-father”). Perhaps that littlest 


Position 20. 


SCHOOLFELLOWS IN BURMA 


155 


boy used to be called just Loogalay Gne Little 
wee boy ”), but now he is old enough to come to 
school he will be called by his real name. 

Did you ever hear a rhyme in English about the 
days of week and the kinds of children born on 
those days? It begins: — 

Monday’s child is fair of face ; 

Tuesday’s child is full of grace,” 


and so on. 

Here where these boys live they have sayings 
of that sort, telling what kind of boy is born on 
each day and what sort of animal will bring him 
good luck. There are fortune tellers who fancy 
they know all about it! They declare, 

Monday’s boy is jealous. The tiger is his lucky 
beast. 

Tuesday’s boy is honest. The lion is his lucky 
beast. 

Wednesday’s boy is impulsive. The elephant 
is his lucky beast. 

Thursday’s boy is good-natured. The rat is his 
lucky beast. 

Friday’s boy is talkative. The guinea-pig is his 
lucky beast. 

Saturday’s boy is quarrelsome. The dragon is 
his lucky beast. 

Sunday’s boy is stingy. His lucky beast is a 
kalohn, a queer thing, half beast and half bird. 

Candles made in the shapes of these animals 
can be bought for a trifle at shops in the town, 
and the boys have great fun burning them for 
good luck. It is a pity they do not always remem- 


Position 20. 


156 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

ber their proverb about The more a man knows, 
the more luck he has ! ” 

Look sharply at those many-storied spires be- 
yond where the boys are sitting now, and you 
will see each one has a sort of umbrella at the top. 
The umbrellas are beautifully gilded and so are 
the different-sized roofs below them. The strange 
buildings are payahs or pagodas built by rich men, 
the fathers or neighbors of these boys; each one 
contains some holy image or some object that had 
once belonged to a holy man. Whenever a new 
one is built there is a fine procession to see, with 
singing and music by a band, and usually a party 
afterwards to which all the man’s friends and 
neighbors are invited. 

Off at the right, on a hill by itself, you can see 
another pagoda — a great, tall one built of white- 
washed brick and concrete, with a magnificent 
gilded flag-staff near by. Can you see the white 
forms of some carved lions in front of it — that is, 
on the side towards the flagstaff? Lions like those 
are often put before a Burmese pagoda to remind 
people of this old story : — 

Once upon a time the child of a king was 
stolen by bad men and left in the jungle to die. 
A hungry lioness came by roaring for food, but 
when she saw how helpless the little brown baby 
was, she did not eat it; she had pity on it and 
carried it tenderly home to her den. There she 
gave the child food and tended it and played with 
it and grew to love it just as if it had been a 
hairy cub of her own. 

“ But when the baby grew to be a boy, he did 
not want to stay with the lion in the jungle den. 


Potition 30. 


SCHOOLFELLOWS IN BURMA 157 

He ran away and swam across a huge river like 
this one, to find his father’s palace. The lion 
followed him to the shore and stood watching 
while he swam and swam farther and farther 
away; and when he reached the other bank her 
heart was broken and she died of grief, because 
she loved him so.” 

Ever since that day people have set lions in 
front of their finest pagodas to remind them of 
the love that made even a roaring lion pitiful and 
kind-hearted. 


Position 20. 


SCHOOLMATES IN FAR-AWAY 
CHINA 


Look at the map of China in your geography 
and you will find the city of Canton in the south- 
eastern part of the country, near the sea. The 
map shows a large river flowing past the city. In 
that river there are several islands, though your 
map is not large enough to show them. 

Canton is as large as Chicago. It has as many 
people as the English Liverpool and Manchester 
added together. There are not many American 
and European people living in Canton, but those 
who do make their homes there live on one of the 
river-islands (the Shameen), connected with the 
rest of the city by a bridge. Several of the Ameri- 
cans who live on the island are missionaries and 
teachers, and one of the teachers has brought her 
class of girls over to a pleasant place beside the 
river where they can sit under the trees and see 
the boats go by while they work or talk. We are 
to meet them there. 

21, Position in China, Mission children with one 
little American girl, Canton 

You can easily find the one little American girl, 
I am sure. When her father and mother come 
back to America, and bring her with them, what 


SCHOOLMATES IN FAR-AWAY CHINA 1 59 

Strange stories she can tell her American friends 
about the Chinese girls with whom she used to 
go to school! The other girls are all older than 
she, but I do not believe those sitting on the bench 
are very much older — do you? The way their 
hair is drawn back, smooth and tight, makes them 
look like little women till you notice how young 
their faces are. 

These girls all belong to prosperous families. 
Their fathers have plenty of money, and the queer 
trousers and baggy coats they wear are of bright 
colored silk. We think it strange to see girls wear- 
ing trousers, but that is the custom here. Some 
of these girls, whose fathers are quite rich, have a 
great many different pairs of silk and satin 
trousers in all sorts of gay colors, and some are 
beautifully embroidered. They are as proud of 
their trousers as any western girl of her pretty 
dresses. 

It seems as if this girl directly in front of you 
must want us to see her long hair. It is pretty 
and long, sure enough, but does it all grow on 
her own head? That would be something quite 
wonderful for a girl of her age. Maybe her own 
braid reaches to her waist and the rest is fastened 
on to make a fine appearance. 

If you look closely you will see that one of the 
other girls wears her hair ‘‘ done up ” in a curious 
knot at the side of her head. Probably she is en- 
gaged to be married, and that is why her mother 
does up her hair. Girls are engaged very young 
here in China, and are usually married to young 


Position 21. 


l6o REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

men whom they have never seen. The older peo- 
ple arrange all those things themselves, and a girl 
is taught to be obedient and pleasant to the hus- 
band her parents choose for her, no matter 
whether she likes him or not. 

Do you notice what queer little feet those girls 
have^ — the ones who are standing at the side near- 
est the river? They are much taller and older 
than our little American, but their feet look not 
nearly as long as hers, because, ever since they 
were six or seven years old, their poor little toes 
have been bent back under the sole of the foot and 
the whole foot has been tied up very tightly with 
long bandages of cloth to keep it from growing. 
Of course, it hurt dreadfully when the mother at 
home began to do it. When a little girl first has 
her feet bound, it makes them ache so badly she 
cries with the pain, and can hardly bear to step 
on them, but after a while she gets used to having 
them always numb and stiff and sore, and she does 
not think much about them, except when the 
bandages are taken off for a bath and changed for 
clean cloths. Then she almost wishes they need 
never be put on again — almost, but not quite, for 
little girls here in China like to do whatever their 
friends do, and if one’s friends all have wee small 
feet, why, one wants to have small feet, too! 
Sometimes the missionaries do succeed in making 
a Chinese mother see how dreadful the custom is, 
and so there are always a few nice girls who are 
allowed to be comfortable in spite of fashion. 

Wouldn’t you think it would be very hard to 


Position 21. 


SCHOOLMATES IN FAR-AWAY CHINA l6l 

skip about, or dance, or play running games with 
such stiff little feet? So it is. These girls do not 
play lively games, and it is not thought good man- 
ners for a nice girl to dance. When they are 
very small indeed they run about, and play puss- 
in-the-corner and other games much as their little 
brothers do, but since they were eight or nine, 
they have occupied themselves very quietly. They 
played “cat’s cradle” and jackstraws; they amused 
themselves with dolls and puzzles and fairy-stories 
when they were smaller. Now they like to sew 
and embroider as their mothers do and they are 
all good at such needlework. 

Chinese parents do not usually send girls to 
school. Boys usually go to school every day and 
many of them study tremendously hard, for they 
must pass severe examinations, if they wish to 
have any very pleasant kind of work to do when 
they grow up. It is not thought necessary for 
girls to learn much besides housekeeping, needle- 
work and music. But fathers and mothers are 
fond of their daughters here just as they are in 
other lands, and, if one of these girls Wanted very 
much indeed to come to the American teacher’s 
school, they would probably let her come and be 
rather proud of her learning afterwards. 

All these girls can speak a little English, though 
you would find them quite shy at first if you tried 
to talk with them. It is usually hard for them 
to pronounce our letter r; they oftener make it 
sound like I and say “ lite ” for “ write.” 

They are very fond of the American women 
11 


Position 21. 


i 62 real children in many lands 

who are their teachers and often bring them pres- 
ents just as girls do at home for favorite teachers. 

Some of those small boats you see in the river 
are carrying loads of one sort or another across 
or up and down the stream. The river is flowing 
away from you in the direction in which you are 
looking. Sometimes fine large steamers from 
America and England come up the river, bringing 
passengers and freight from away around at the 
other side of the world. The greater part of the 
busy city of Canton lies off at your left, beyond 
these gardens which you see now and across an- 
other part of the river. It is over there where 
the steamers land, and where the parents of these 
Chinese girls have their homes. 

When these girls go home they will bow very 
low to their fathers and mothers, and, if older 
people are talking, they will always wait very 
politely for a chance to speak. They do not sit 
down till they are asked to do so. A Chinese girl 
who went noisily about the house, or sat com- 
fortably before being invited to do so, would be 
considered very ill-bred and rude. Little girls say 
A-ye for “ papa ” and A-ma for “ mamma.’’ 

When dinner is ready at five or six o’clock at 
night, mothers and daughters do not often eat 
with the father. He has his meals served first, 
and, if men friends come to visit him, the women 
and children and young girls are not invited to 
the same dining-room; they have their good things 
to eat by themselves. 

Are they ‘‘ good things ” ? That depends on a 


Position 21. 


SCHOOLMATES IN FAR-AWAY CHINA 163 

person’s taste. These girls think that rice and fish 
and fried peanuts make a very nice meal. If there 
is a dessert of fruit, it is served first. Did you 
ever eat preserved ginger that came packed in an 
earthen jar? Very likely it came from this very 
city of Canton and was just like what these girls 
have eaten. 

The cook in the kitchen cuts up the fish or meat 
into little pieces before sending it into the dining- 
room, for the family use no knives nor forks. 
When one of these sweet faced girls is eating her 
dinner, she uses her fingers in a dainty, careful 
fashion, for some kinds of foods; she drinks her 
tea and drinks her soup from cups and bowls. If 
she has rice or fish or vegetables in little pieces, 
she takes the pieces between the ends of two slen- 
der little chopsticks of ivory or wood, in a very 
odd way. She does not take one chopstick in each 
hand — oh, no, she holds them both very cleverly 
between the fingers of her right hand (it is impos- 
sible to describe how it is done, but any Chinese 
could show you) and manages beautifully, never 
letting a morsel drop disagreeably in the process. 
You might think her awkward if you saw her tod- 
dling about on those funny little feet of hers, but 
when it came to eating with chopsticks you would 
find yourself the awkward one, and would quite 
admire her ladylike deftness. 

There are a good many festivals and holidays 
when these girls have special goodies — little cakes 
and strips of candied cocoanut. Sometimes these 
girls give parties for their special friends, but the 


Positloa 31. 


164 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

parties are very small, with only three or four 
guests, and no boys are ever invited. When the 
daughter of a rich man goes to see her friends she 
rides in a curious sort of carriage without horses. 
It is really a sort of large box, comfortably cush- 
ioned, and two men servants carry it by poles at- 
tached to the top of the box! 

If there are babies at home, you may be sure 
these older sisters are very fond of them. Chinese 
babies are the dearest and funniest mites and they 
have all sorts of things done to amuse them be- 
cause everybody loves them. There are a great 
many little songs and games for wee Chinese chil- 
dren. A good many American girls have sung to 
their little brothers and sisters the Mother Goose 
rhymes about Rock-a-bye, baby ” and “ Bye-low 
baby bunting.’’ These girls know songs of much 
the same sort, with pretty Chinese words. These 
are some of the baby songs, put into English.* 

Mrs. Chang, Mrs. Lee, 

Mamma has a small baby ; 

Stands up firm, 

Sits up straight. 

Won’t eat milk, 

But lives on cake.” 

One is something like our rhyme about how ‘‘This 
little pig went to market ” : — 

“ A great big brother. 

And a little brother, — so; 

* Taken from “ Chinese Mother Goose Rhymes,” copyright, 1900, 
by Fleming H. Revell Company. 


Pofitlon 21. 


SCHOOLMATES IN FAR-AWAY CHINA 


165 


A big bell-tower, 

And a temple and a show ; 

And a little baby wee — wee 
Always wants to go ! ” 

If one of those smaller girls on the bench beyond 
our little American should find a lady-bug on the 
grass or on the trunk of one of those banyan trees, 
she will catch it and hold it in her little fist, while 
she sings to it (in Chinese, of course): — 

Lady-bug, lady-bug. 

Fly away — do. 

Fly to the mountain 
And feed upon dew. 

Feed upon dew 
And sleep on a rug. 

And then run away 
Like a good little bug.’’ 

Since these girls have been to the American teach- 
ers^ school, they have heard about Christmas and 
have had Christmas presents from their American 
friends, but at home nobody ever makes any cele- 
bration over the birthday of the Christ Child — in 
fact most Chinese people have never heard of Him. 
They do have great good times at New Year’s. 
The Chinese New Year comes not on January 
first, but somewhere between the middle of Janu- 
ary and the middle of February, varying in differ- 
ent years. Then there are music and fireworks, 
and all sorts of sweet and nice things to eat, and 
everybody has a very good time. These girls are 
not taken to see the fireworks, but they have par- 
ties at home. 


Position 21. 


THE WHITE-CLAD BOYS OF KOREA 


Within the last few years several American men 
and women have gone to Korea as missionaries. 
The nearest way to Korea is by steamship from 
San Francisco or Seattle across the broad Pacific 
ocean to Yokohama in Japan; then by another 
steamship across the Sea of Japan to Korea. You 
will easily find the country on a map of Asia, and 
the map will show you a little black dot marking 
the place where the city of Seoul stands. A black 
dot is not much like a city. It gives no idea at all 
of a place where real people live. But let us go 
there and see for ourselves. Put our Seoul stereo- 
graph in the stereoscope rack and look with your 
own eyes. 

22, Position in Korea. Granite lion before the 
gateway to the old royal palace; Seoul 

It certainly is a comical lion! The man who 
carved it out of a block of solid granite could never 
have seen a real live lion (or is it meant for a 
tiger?), such as American children find at a circus. 
But it does look ferocious, and that was the sculp- 
tor's main idea. He wanted to produce something 
that would look particularly grim and fierce, guard- 
ing that gateway to the palace of the Korean king. 

Perhaps you think these Korean men and boys 
are almost as funny as the stone beast. Strangers, 


THE WHITE-CLAD BOYS OF KOREA 167 

when they first come here, wonder why people go 
about the streets in night-clothes. But really 
those white robes and shirts and trousers are the 
proper things for every day, and, as for the long, 
braided hair, a Korean boy would be dreadfully 
ashamed of having his hair cut short. The other 
fellows would make fun of him, and perhaps re- 
fuse to play with him at all, unless he, too, wore a 
long pig-tail.” 

You can see one shy little girl with her finger 
in her mouth, at the extreme right of the group. 
She looks just like the boys, except that she wears 
a colored skirt and a long apron. Her queer little 
shoes turn up at the toes, like toy boats. In an- 
other minute she will probably be going on toward 
home, for she has to help her mother prepare the 
boiled rice and onions and cabbage for dinner. 

When these boys are grown up they will all put 
on long white frocks, like the men’s, and have black 
horsehair hats with those flat brims and stiff high 
crowns. The fashions do not change in this land. 
Hats and robes are made today just like those that 
were worn by Korean great-great-grandfathers. 

There are schools in this town where many boys 
go for lessons, but the schoolhouses are not fine, 
large buildings like the one just ahead. That is 
the splendid gateway of a palace where kings of 
Korea used to live in old times. Some years 
ago, after a great war, Japanese soldiers were sent 
here to help manage the Korean government, and 
now Japanese officers make laws for the country. 

The Korean schoolhouses are more like the boys’ 


Pofltloa 32. 


l68 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

homes — little low buildings, made of bamboo tim- 
bers and plastered with mud, with a roof made of 
straw. A few nicer schoolhouses have brick walls, 
with earthenware tiles laid in rows to keep out the 
rain. If the schoolmaster is a Korean man, he 
usually has a rug or a piece of straw matting 
spread over the floor, and sits on that with a low 
table before him, perhaps a foot high, while the 
boys sit on the floor studying. In mission schools, 
where Christian foreigners are teachers, the boys 
often sit on benches arranged in orderly rows; 
that makes the schoolroom look a little more like 
the one where you learn your own lessons, even 
though the boys are all in white. They have 
printed books to study, some whose words are in 
Korean writing and some with Chinese characters. 
They read about their own country and about other 
countries; they practice writing Korean script, and 
they work over problems in arithmetic. 

When school is done friends go oflf to play in 
little groups or gangs. They have Korean kinds of 
ball games, over which they get almost as excited 
as our own American boys. They like to play 
games resembling checkers and parcheesi — games 
where pieces are moved about over a board. But 
they have not been used to a great variety of games, 
and they think the new ones which American and 
English teachers know are great fun. 

Some boys have to begin work while they are 
still quite small, in order to earn money for their 
families. That little fellow who stands just be- 
hind the girl has been sent on an errand, carrying 


Pofition 72. 


THE WHITE-CLAD BOYS OF KOREA 1 69 

a heavy bundle slung on his back. Loads of all 
kinds are carried on the backs of boys or men, oxen 
or horses ; one almost never sees a cart or a wagon 
in all this city. But there is now a line of electric 
street cars in Seoul, and perhaps before long there 
may be express teams. 

If you look far over the roofs beyond the monu- 
ment you can see high hills, one beyond another. 
The country near here has a great many hills like 
those, and children believe that strange demons and 
dragons live on the hills and inside the rocks over 
there. None of these boys have ever seen the ugly 
creatures, but if you could talk with them they 
would tell you all sorts of creepy stories about such 
things. If the wind should suddenly blow one of 
those stiff black hats off the owner’s head, probably 
all these Koreans would fancy that some bad spirit 
had snatched it for fun. If that little girl should 
carelessly stumble over a stone, as she walks along 
the road toward home, she would feel sure some 
disagreeable demon had tripped her, on purpose to 
make her get hurt. Such ideas seem silly enough 
to us, but Koreans have heard them all their lives, 
and how should they know any better? The most 
respectable people in the whole city bow to the in- 
visible hill gods and pay woodcarvers to make 
queer, ugly images, grinning like our Hallowe’en 
Jack-o’-Lanterns, to frighten bad elves away! It 
seems absurd for a serious, courteous, grown-up 
man, perhaps the manager of a large business, to 
fancy that there are evil spirits which can be terri- 


Pofition 22 . 


170 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

fied by a painted scarecrow; but that is the way 
people think in Korea. 

A few years ago, when electric cars were new in 
Seoul, there was one particularly dry summer. No 
rain fell for a long time on those bare hills, or on 
this square before the palace, or on farmers’ rice 
and cabbage fields. Fortune tellers were consulted 
to learn the reason why there was no rain, and 
they said it was because evil spirits in the trolley 
cars scared the clouds away. So a mob of men 
smashed the new cars and set them on fire, to drive 
out the troublesome demons ! 

No wonder missionaries come here to help teach 
truer ideas about God’s world! People are slow 
to give up old notions, but already there are many 
men and women, boys and girls in Seoul who go to 
church and to Sunday school, and who know that 
the ruler of the whole earth is our good Father in 
heaven. And, knowing that, they no longer feel 
afraid when they hear the wind howl, or when they 
see a cloud of dust blowing along the street. 


Position 22. 


RECESS-TIME IN JAPAN, THE LAND 
OF THE RISING SUN 

You have many a time seen paper fans that 
came from Japan, gay with pictures of ladies in 
strange, bright-colored clothes. Some of the fans 
perhaps showed you pictures of a steep mountain 
with clouds or snow about the top. The mountain 
they represent is a real mountain and many a 
Japanese country boy and girl has seen it looking 
just as it does on the fans. 

But people — real live people — are even more in- 
teresting than mountains. Now how would you 
like to see some real Japanese children of your 
own age, in a school yard at recess? 

Find Yokohama on your map; it is on the east- 
ern seacoast of the country — a place where a great 
many American and English steamships land. 
The school grounds that you will see are there in- 
Yokohama, not very far from the seashore. 

JPosition in Japan, Schoolhouse and grounds 
with vine~covered shelter and little folks play- 
ing, Yokohama 

Is the schoolyard on the same level as the space 
at this side of the fence? I wonder how these 
large boys happen to be outside the fence instead 
of playing there with the others; perhaps they 


172 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

have been excused to go on an errand, and are 
waiting only for a moment to watch some game. 
I do not believe they are playing truant, for, in 
the first place, children have a very good time at 
this school, and in the second place, truants would 
probably be ashamed to show themselves in this 
way before all the other children who have kept 
faithfully at their work. 

Possibly some very interesting game is to be 
played, and that is why these grown-up women 
have come to the fence, too. See in what a funny 
way the baby rides on its mother’s back. Some- 
times it sits behind her on a sort of broad belt or 
sash which mamma ties around her waist, in front. 
Sometimes mamma tucks the little one into the 
back of her cloak, with its head bobbing over her 
shoulder. Can you see two babies here? Both 
of them act as if they were really interested to see 
what is going on down in that yard ! 

Almost all Japanese babies are carried about in 
this way by their mothers or their older sisters. 
The mother straps the little fellow tightly to her 
back so that he cannot fall off, and then she walks 
about doing her housework, or goes to the mar- 
ket, or goes shopping, just as if he were not there 
at all. As soon as school is out very likely an 
older sister of each baby will take charge of him 
in the same way. It is no trouble at all. If the 
little one is tied on properly in the first place, he 
never falls off; he almost never cries. The sister 
can run about, and play puss-in-the-corner or 
blindman’s-buff (she calls the game eye-hid- 


Potltion 2i. 


RECESS TIME IN JAPAN 


173 

as well as if the baby were asleep on a 
cushion. In fact baby often does take a nap on 
her shoulders while she is having a good time 
with the other girls. 

Do these boys wear shoes like yours? How 
are they different from yours? See, some of the 
queer shoes have two strips of wood under the 
sole, holding them well up out of the dirt. Some 
are like flat slippers with soles and toes but noth- 
ing to hold them on at the heel. If you tried to 
run with such queer shoes on your toes, you would 
certainly drop them when you lifted your feet, but 
these women and children never drop them by 
accident. They like to have them in this shape, 
because, when they do want to drop them, there 
are no buttons nor shoelaces to bother, and here 
in Japan everybody takes off his shoes when he 
goes into the house. 

Do these people wear stockings? Many Jap- 
anese: do, but they are not like your stockings; 
the great toe is separated from the other toes like 
the thumb in a mitten, and the sole is made much 
thicker than the rest so that it may not wear out 
when the owner runs about in his stocking-feet. 

When one of these boys goes home he drops off 
his shoes at the door, and, if his feet are dusty, 
he washes them nice and clean before entering 
the sitting-room in his bare feet or his stocking 
feet. The floors at home are covered with thick 
straw matting, and people sit on the floor or on 
little flat cushions, so you can see there is good 
reason for taking off one’s shoes. Treading on 


Position 23. 


174 real children in many lands 

the mats with dusty boots would be as rude as 
climbing with muddy rubbers into the pretty 
chairs in your own parlor at home. 

See what big sleeves these mothers wear. All 
Japanese ladies wear gowns cut like these; there 
are pockets in the big sleeves for carrying paper 
handkerchiefs and money and any little things 
that mamma buys while she is out for her errands. 
Many a time she has carried candy and funny new 
toys home to the children, tucked into a corner of 
those huge sleeves. 

Do you notice that one of the mothers wears a 
broad sash of light-colored cloth tied about her 
waist and hanging in big, flat loops behind? Lit- 
tle girls like to wear such sashes when they are 
nicely dressed, and, even though it does mean a 
good deal of trouble, they stand very still while 
mamma pulls out the loops just so, that they may 
hang exactly like a grown up woman’s. The boys 
do not care quite so much about their clothes. 

What a flne large schoolyard the boys and girls 
have for their play ! See — if it should be very hot, 
they can have their games in the shade of that big 
trellis where the vines are growing. They know 
how to play a great many of the same games you 
have seen other children playing in other lands. 
The boys you see here now all have tops and kites 
and pop-guns at home. They often play jack- 
stones. They delight to walk on stilts and to play 
“ tug-of-war.” Sometimes they play a game called 
Kotoro. One boy is “ It ” and the rest stand in a 
row, one behind another, taking hold of each 


Position 23. 


RECESS TIME IN JAPAN 


175 


Other's clothes so as to make a long, close line. 
Then the boy who is It " tries to catch the last 
boy in the line. The whole line bends this way 
and that way, and doubles and coils to prevent 
him. He dodges around first at one side and then 
at the other trying to reach the last boy, but it is 
pretty hard work if the others are quick and clever 
at barring him off. 

Some of the boys — even quite small ones — are 
pretty good wrestlers. Grown up men here enjoy 
seeing a good wrestling match. The older boys 
play football and baseball and play them well, too. 

And what do the girls play? Probably every 
girl you see here has dolls at home, or, if she has 
grown too big to play with them herself, she may 
have given them to her little sisters or her baby 
cousins. 

The things made here in Japan for little girls' 
dolls are the dearest and nicest you ever saw; 
there is every sort of furniture that grown up 
Japanese people use — tiny dishes, wee teapots and 
baskets, flower pots with flowers in them, and even 
little two-wheeled carriages in which the doll-ladies 
may go out riding. In March of every year there 
is a special day when every little girl in Japan 
plays with her prettiest dolls and serves a special 
feast for them on the daintiest dishes that she 
owns. 

These girls often play battledore-and-shuttle- 
cock, like the children you know at home. They 
like to play checkers, and they know ever so many 
amusing card games which they play as you and 


Position 23. 


176 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

your chums play “ Authors.” Some cards have 
proverbs printed on them and some have verses 
of Japanese poetry. 

There is a funny sort of tag ” here in Japan, 
where a girl tries to step on another girl’s shadow 
on the ground. They could not play that game 
here to-day, for you see there are no clear, strong 
shadows. It must be a cloudy day in Yokohama. 

The boys as well as the girls have a special day 
— not for dolls, but for flags. Their day comes in 
May, and then every house that has any boys in 
the family hangs out gay flags to show how glad 
the parents are that the boys were born. A great 
many of the flags are in the shape of a kind of 
fish called the carp — a strong, resolute sort of fish 
that is not easily discouraged; it will swim straight 
up-stream against the strong current of a river. 
They say Japanese boys ought to be like that — 
able to make up their minds to do what is right, 
and never in all the world to give up just because 
things are not easy. 

Boys and girls both do really learn to be brave 
and strong here in Japan. You do not very often 
see lazy children here. They work while they 
work and play while they play, and they manage 
to learn a great deal at school besides having the 
most delightful good times. 

What do they study in those schoolhouses at 
the farther side of this playground ? That depends 
of course on how old a child is. All the scholars 
are classified in different grades just as they are 
in your own schools at home. The very little ones 


Position 23. 


RECESS TIME IN JAPAN 


177 


learn to read and to write and to draw; the older 
ones have arithmetic, too, and geography and his- 
tory. The oldest of all study English and some 
of them can read and speak it very well indeed. 

Japanese books are very different from ours. 
If you could look at the Readers that these boys 
study you could not make out a single idea. A 
Japanese reader does not use letters like ours — 
A, B, C and so on ; its pages are covered with odd- 
shaped marks that stand for certain sounds or cer- 
tain words. When these children read a story, 
they begin at the back of the book and read to- 
wards the front — that is the way Japanese books 
are made. They think our books are very 
strangely planned! Of course everybody natur- 
ally thinks his own way of doing things is the 
easiest. 

On the next two pages you will find a Japanese 
story which many of these children have read in 
their own books. It is printed here as it would 
be printed in a Japanese book, only of course the 
Japanese would use their own curious letter-signs 
and word-signs instead of our alphabet. You will 
find it fairly easy to read. Begin at the upper 
right corner of the last page and read downwards; 
then take the next column in the same way, and 
so on. 

The writing lessons in this school are also very 
different from yours. It is much harder to learn 
to write Japanese than to learn to write English, 
for these people use curious marks, almost alike 
yet really quite different, which mean entirely dif- 


13 


Position 23. 


178 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 



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RECESS TIME IN JAPAN 


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Position 23. 


l8o REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

ferent words. One has to learn a great many of 
those word-signs perfectly so as to read them ex- 
actly right, and it takes long, long practice to 
make them quite correctly. The children do not 
use pencils or pens; they write with long-handled 
brushes dipped in black ink. They draw with 
brushes, too, using sometimes black ink and some- 
times bright colors. Many of them can draw beau- 
tifully. 

If one of these boys is very good at his lessons, 
his people will very likely send him to a high 
school, and then to a university, where he can 
learn a great deal more. There was once a boy 
who became a student in a university only a few 
miles from here (in Tokyo), and he thought out a 
way to cut a great canal from a certain Japanese 
lake down to a distant river. While he was at 
work making the drawings, and writing out the 
explanation of his good idea, he lost the use of his 
right hand; but he would not give up — not he. 
He remembered the fish-flags that his father used 
to hang out for him on the fifth of May when he 
was a small boy! He said to himself — ‘‘Never 
mind, I am going to do it, no matter how hard it 
is ! He learned all over again to write and to 
draw, using his left hand. 

When his work was ready, everybody saw how 
wise and practical the plan was, and they carried 
it out, cutting a tunnel just as he told them to do, 
right through a mountain. Now the water that 
runs through the canal feeds the farmers’ fields, 
and helps keep a great deal of machinery going; 


Position 23. 


RECESS TIME IN JAPAN 


l8l 

it is thanks to him that Kyoto, one of the biggest 
cities in Japan, has electric lights just like those in 
America and England. 

Very likely some of these boys you see right 
here may do just as helpful things. Very likely 
some of them will be soldiers, and bravely fight 
for their country if she needs them, to keep her 
safe and happy. Many of these very children have 
fathers or uncles or big brothers who are soldiers. 

But just at present they themselves are not old 
enough either to plan canals or to go to the 
wars. When school is out, they will say Sayonara 

Good-bye ”) to the teachers and to their class- 
mates, and run home to dinner. 

What do you suppose they will have? Boiled 
fish, most likely, and rice, and a sort of turnip or 
large radish that they call daikon — maybe little 
sweet cakes and tea. 

And how do you suppose they will eat dinner? 
Nobody here has chairs and dining-tables. The 
proper way is to make one’s self very neat and 
tidy, and to sit on the floor while mamma or the 
older sister or a maid helps the little folks. Peo- 
ple here do not use plates like yours, but they 
have pretty bowls, sometimes of china and some- 
times of wood covered with shining lacquer so 
that it is hard and smooth as china. These chil- 
dren will eat the rice and fish and the vegetables 
with two slender little “ chopsticks ” held cleverly 
between the fingers of the right hand. The sticks 
are sometimes of wood, sometimes of ivory. Eat- 
ing with them is a good deal like eating with a 


pMitlon 21 . 


1 82 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

couple of your grandmother’s knitting needles in- 
stead of a fork and spoon; if you yourself had a 
meal of boiled rice served to you in that way, you 
would probably drop most of the white grains on 
their way to your mouth, and feel dreadfully 
ashamed of your clumsiness. These children are 
used to it, and have a daintily neat way of eating. 
None but the very little ones ever drop their food. 

If they want a bowl refilled, they say to the 
mother or maid, Motto, kudasai (‘‘ to give more, 
please be so kind ”). 


Po«ltl«n 23* 


A CHRISTMAS PICNIC IN 
TASMANIA 


There are a good many grown-up people who 
could hardly tell where Tasmania is. Probably a 
boy or girl who has quite lately studied geography 
would be the one who knows exactly where to find 
it on a map. You know, of course. It is a big 
island off the south coast of Australia. The boys 
and girls who live there are themselves quite like 
boys and girls whom you know at home, but some 
things about their country seem amazingly different 
until you stop to think about the reason why. 

All through the northern United States we ex- 
pect cold weather at Christmas-time. Often the 
ground is covered deep with snow, and sleigh- 
bells jingle in the frosty air. Often, though the 
ground may still be bare, it is frozen hard, and 
every pond is a sheet of ice, promising the j oiliest 
sort of fun to the owner of a new pair of Christ- 
mas skates. 

At the very same time of year in Tasmania — 
but let us see for ourselves what people there do 
for fun on the 25th of December. 

24. JPosition in Tasmania, Christmas holiday 

pleasures at the Fern-tree bower near Hobart 

This is a favorite picnic ground up among some 
high wooded hills, a few miles from the city of 


184 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

Hobart. Family parties often come out here for 
the day, bringing baskets full of good things to 
eat and drink, and they have a gay time, with 
those curious fern trees to shield them from the 
hot midsummer sun. Yes — “ midsummer ’’ — for 
Tasmania is about as far south of the Equator as 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are north 
of the Equator, so the seasons are reversed. The 
coldest weather these boys know comes in July and 
August. September and October bring spring 
days; April and May come in the fall. Of course 
it seems all right when once you are accustomed 
to it and these boys have never known any other 
kind of calendar. To them it would sound quite 
absurd to expect snow or ice during a Christmas 
vacation ! 

Everybody here speaks English, as we do at 
home. The fathers or grandfathers of most of 
these boys came to Tasmania from England or 
Scotland or Ireland, just as the fathers or grand- 
fathers of boys in Oregon and Idaho went there 
from some other distant place. They all go to 
school in the towns where they live, and many of 
their lessons are of the same kind as yours; but 
when they do arithmetical problems concerning 
money they reckon not in dollars and cents but in 
English money — ^pounds, shillings and pence. If 
one of them were telling you of a new knife he 
had just bought he might very likely say that it 
cost him ‘‘ four and six.” Do you know what that 
means ? 

It looks as if these boys had been drilling under 


PMltloo 24. 


A CHRISTMAS PICNIC IN TASMANIA 185 

a captain; the officer is still holding his sword. A 
great many fellows belong to companies of Boy 
Scouts, and work hard at the various things Scouts 
learn to do. All sorts of out-of-door games are 
popular with them. Football and baseball are 
played, and played well, but cricket is a still greater 
favorite in most parts of Tasmania and Australia. 
That girl with the white dress and the big hat is 
pretty sure to know how to play tennis and cro- 
quet and to ride a horse or a pony; very likely she 
can swim and row a boat almost as well as the 
boys. Girls like her often go to college just as their 
brothers do. 

Electric lights and automobiles are as common in 
this part of the world as they are with us. Prob- 
ably each boy here has his opinion about the best 
motor-car to own; they know several American 
cars and a good many of French and Italian make. 
Very likely some of this company know how to 
wire a house for an electric door-bell. Perhaps 
there is in the group an enthusiast in wireless 
telegraphy. 

There are all sorts of interesting things that 
such boys as these plan to do when they grow up. 
If one likes being out of doors and making the 
ground produce splendid fruit, Tasmania is a par- 
ticularly good place for him. Apple-growers in 
this island country raise wonderful crops; their 
fruit is carried by ocean steamships to far-off Eng- 
land and Germany. In parts of Australia there are 
sheep stations (‘"station” means the same as a 
ranch or farm) where thousands and thousands of 


Position 24. 


i86 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


animals are raised every season. It is tremendously 
interesting to know all about sheep — how to make 
them grow finer wool or longer wool or thicker 
wool. 

Still another great chance for these boys is in 
mining. Some of the gold mines over in Australia 
Jiave produced gold in actual lumps, huge, heavy 
nuggets, each worth enough to support a man and 
his family all the rest of their lives. And no- 
body knows what immense quantities of gold may 
still be lying hidden under the commonplace dirt 
of a village street, or under the grass and bushes 
of some lonely country pasture. The Australian 
state governments support schools for training 
young men as mining engineers. They study geol- 
ogy and mineralogy, so that they may be able to 
recognize every genuine sign of the conditions 
where gold is likely to be found. They study ma- 
chinery and learn all the best ways to bore and 
tunnel through the earth’s rocky crust; they learn 
the most up-to-date ways of pumping fresh air 
through the burrows where miners work, and they 
find out the most satisfactory methods of sepa- 
rating gold from other substances in which it is 
bedded. With such fascinating things to study and 
such fairy-story possibilities of gold waiting to be 
discovered, it is no wonder that a great many boys 
like these under the fern trees mean some day to be 
mining engineers. 


PosMoti 34. 


WHERE LITTLE MAORIS GO 
SWIMMING 


There are maps in the school geographies that 
show how steamships are steered across the Pacific 
ocean from Seattle or San Francisco to the Ha- 
waiian Islands, far out in the vast Pacific ocean. 
If you were to make that voyage, and land at Hono- 
lulu, you might change to another vessel and go on 
sailing still farther south over the Pacific ocean 
till the boat should reach the city of Auckland, on 
the northernmost of the two big islands that make 
New Zealand. Auckland itself looks quite like 
some of our own towns. It has pretty, wooden 
houses, and good shops, broad streets, with trolley 
cars and electric lights, and plenty of gardens and 
playgrounds. The people speak English, just as 
they do in Australia and Tasmania. Their fathers 
or grandfathers or great-grandfathers used to live 
in England or Scotland or Ireland before they 
moved to New Zealand. 

But, if you go to a country district about a hun- 
dred miles from the town of Auckland, you can see 
brown-skinned boys and girls, whose ancestors 
used to own all the land in New Zealand, just as 
American Indians used to own the land in the 
United States before white men came. It is a 


'l88 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

beautiful part of the island where they live now, 
and there are some quite astonishing things to be 
seen there. This is one. 

25, Position in New Zealand, In Nature’s hath~ 
tub where hot water never fails, Whakarewarewa 

(That long name is not half so hard as it looks; 
in fact, it sounds rather pretty. Pronounce it this 
way, putting your emphasis on the syllables in ital- 
ics : Whack-2i-rue-2i-rue-2i . ) 

This little pond beside the house is just deep 
enough to’ make a jolly swimming hole and not 
deep enough to be dangerous. Besides, all these 
boys and girls can swim like so many ducks. They 
have been used to the water all their lives. The 
curious thing about this pool is that the water in 
it is always quite warm ; summer or winter, it never 
grows cold. 

You can see quite plainly the faces of all these 
children, except one girl, who moved her head 
when she ought to have kept it still. In some ways 
they look just a bit like Indian children, with their 
brown complexions and their straight black hair. 
People call them Maoris, and they are proud of the 
race to which they belong. They live in wooden 
cottages, some like the house where you see the 
grown-up people on the porch, some larger and 
nicer than that one. The boys and girls go to 
school and study lessons of the same kinds as those 
of white children in the Auckland schools. They 
have read in their own geographies that there is 
a country called the United States, but they do not 


WHERE LITTLE MAORIS GO SWIMMING 189 

know much more about it than Americans know 
about New Zealand! 

There are some ponds and creeks near here 
where the water is as cool as we find it at home. 
There these boys can go fishing. Berries grow in 
some of the green fields and in hillside pastures, 
and everybody knows what fun it is to pick berries. 
Little Maori girls like dolls as well as the girls do 
on your own street at home, and some of them 
have learned to sew so well that they can make all 
the new clothes their children need. The older 
girls learn how to keep house; the older boys help 
their fathers on the farms or learn to be carpenters 
and shoemakers and printers. They have just as 
good a chance in life as the white boys in other 
parts of New Zealand. Some of them are proud of 
Maori relatives who have been elected to the New 
Zealand legislature and helped make laws for the 
country. 


Pofltlon 25. 


A SOUTH AMERICAN HOME NEAR 
THE EQUATOR 

We all know how hot the weather can be about 
the Fourth of July. If you were a South American 
boy, with a home in the city of Guayaquil, you 
would have Fourth of July weather all the year 
around and get used to it, for Guayaquil is only 
about a hundred miles from the equator. We are 
invited now to visit the family of two little 
brothers who do live there. 

26, Position in Ecuador, Home life in the family 
of a Spanish citizen of Guayaquil 

Everybody who can afford it dresses in thin 
white clothes, because they are the most comfort- 
able. Most of the floors are bare. You can see 
that the people of this family like chairs with seats 
and backs of woven cane or rattan, and they do 
not care for many cushions. Sometimes curtains 
are hung from those long poles where the curtain 
rings remain, but in the hottest weather it is pleas- 
anter to put aside everything that might keep out 
a bit of fresh air. If you were to go through the 
broad doorway at the left, and look out over that 
iron railing which guards a balcony, you would see 
the garden, full of flower beds and blossoming 


A SOUTH AMERICAN HOME NEAR THE EQUATOR I9I 

shrubs, and very likely you would hear the tinkling 
waters of a fountain. 

The baby is too little to do anything but laugh 
and cry, take naps on a cool mattress in his iron 
crib and wake up hungry; but the brother by the 
table is quite old enough to enjoy picture-books, 
and perhaps to draw pictures himself with colored 
pencils. Mother or the aunt or a governess will 
teach all his lessons at home, until he is ten or 
eleven years old, and then he may go to a school 
with men for teachers to help him get ready for 
college. All his story-books are printed in the 
Spanish language and all the talk here at home is 
in Spanish, too, unless the governess is a French 
woman ; in that case the son of the house will grow 
up knowing how to use both languages. 

There are a great many interesting things to see 
in the city, when the father takes this boy down 
town. Donkeys are used more often than horses 
for hauling carts, and sometimes a donkey’s owner 
puts trousers on the animal to protect his legs from 
the sting of hungry flies. Donkeys are funny 
enough, anyway, and a donkey in trousers is fun- 
niest of all. Steamships, boats with sails, row- 
boats and canoes are always to be seen if you walk 
along the wharves, where men work in the hot sun- 
shine putting loads on vessels or taking them off. 
Sometimes a native Indian of Ecuador comes to 
the wharf poling a big raft piled with fruit to sell 
at the Guayaquil market. Any boy would be inter- 
ested to see men handling great sacks full of cof- 
fee berries, which will be sent to Germany, or to 


Potitlon 26. 


192 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

watch men at the warehouse, raking over heaps of 
cacao beans, from which cocoa and chocolate can- 
dies will some time be made — perhaps in a United 
States factory. 

When our Ecuador boy’s mother takes him out 
it is oftenest to church, but sometimes to the shops 
or to neighbors’ houses. When she is going to 
church she puts on a black gown, or a long black 
cloak, and wears over her head a scarf or shawl of 
black silk instead of a hat. There are no pews in 
the church. People kneel on the stone pavement 
to say their prayers, and stand a part of the time. 
If mother wants a seat, she has a small bench or 
a low chair carried to church and brought home 
again. 

Spanish-American children, in a very warm 
country like this, are not so much interested in 
lively, energetic games as we are farther north. 
They do play tag and puss-in-the-corner and a few 
things of that sort, while they are little folks, but 
big boys do not spend much time on baseball or 
football, and big girls would rather keep cool than 
do anything like playing tennis in the hot sun. In 
fact, Ecuador mothers think it nicer for girls to 
stay quietly in the house, except as they go out to 
church, or to have lessons in music and embroidery 
from the nuns at some convent nearby. But there 
is plenty of home fun for everybody. Tops and 
jackstones, balls and blocks, dolls and toy dishes 
can be bought at shops in the town, and candies, 
too ; everybody here is fond of sweet things. And, 
on New Year’s day, when Ecuador people give 


Position 26. 


A SOUTH AMERICAN HOME NEAR THE EQUATOR 193 

presents as we do at Christmas, there are shining 
new bicycles, guitars for musical young folks, and 
paint-boxes for those who love color. 

Perhaps you feel sorry for a boy who never 
went skating on a frozen pond, never even saw a 
snowflake, and never heard a big crowd yell at a 
ball game. But Guayaquil boys see other exciting 
things that are rare enough in the United States — 
earthquakes, for example. This very house at 
which we are looking was purposely built with thin 
walls and ceiling, so that it may stand an occasional 
shaking without danger of falling to pieces. Many 
a time this room has shivered and trembled and 
shaken, but no serious harm has ever been done and 
nobody gets frightened. 

Out in the kitchen the maid has a queer sort of 
table, or high bench, built of stone, or brick plas- 
tered together, and in the top of the bench are hol- 
low places where she can burn lumps of charcoal. 
She has iron kettles and frying pans with legs, and 
she sets them over her little fires of charcoal when 
she wants to boil vegetables and fish, or to make 
coffee and chocolate. Baking can be done in an- 
other kettle, its legs striding another little fire, and 
its top closed by a tight cover. You would be 
amazed to see what good things to eat can be made 
ready on one of those queer kitchen tables, with a 
few heaps of glowing charcoal. 


13 


Pocltlon 36. 


MARKET DAY IN PERU 


We have seen how comfortably some of our 
South American neighbors live at Guayaquil, in 
Ecuador (page 190). But not everybody has so 
pleasant a home as we found there. A great many 
people are poor. Many do not care about pretty 
houses or clean clothes. They have good times in 
their own way, though the ‘‘ way is very differ- 
ent from ours. 

The republic of Peru is south of Ecuador, on 
the west coast of South America. Look for it on 
one of your school maps, and you will see that 
there are several Peruvian towns near the seashore, 
with a long range of mountains separating them 
from other towns farther inland. One of the in- 
land towns is called Pasco, or Cerro de Pasco. We 
will make our next visit there. 

27* Position in Peru, Selling ponchos, vegetables 
and ice cream at a native market; Cerro de Pasco 

Every week this place in the middle of the town 
is occupied by open-air shops, and boys and girls 
come either to see the fun or to help about the 
work. That boy with two dishes on his tray is ped- 
dling a kind of ice cream which everybody here 
enjoys. It is not like our own ice cream, for it is 
made by stirring snow into a mixture of milk and 
sugar, but at all events it is cold and sweet. The 


MARKET DAY IN PERU 


195 


boy at the left of the peddler may have just bought 
his striped poncho from that man who sits on the 
ground with a pile of others ready for customers. 
Some ponchos are of plain gray or brown, or dark- 
blue woolen cloth, but you can see for yourself that 
striped ones are common, too. A poncho is a big 
blanket, with a length-wise slit in the middle, big 
enough to stick one’s head through. The blanket 
hangs over the shoulders and down over the back 
and the chest, making a very good coat, easy to 
put on or to take off. It serves for a mackintosh in 
rainy weather. It serves for sheets and bed blan- 
kets when the owner lies down at night without 
taking the trouble to undress. 

These people do not look at all like the Spaniards 
in the pleasant home at Guayaquil. The folks here 
in this market-place are not Spaniards, but Indians, 
descendants of the original people of South Amer- 
ica, and possibly very distant relatives of some of 
the Indians in our own southwestern states. Their 
ancestors owned this part of South America, raised 
potatoes and tomatoes and sheep, and worked the 
silver mines for their own Indian chiefs, long be- 
fore any white explorers came here from Spain. 
Now some of them live in this town, and others 
live in cabins out in the country, coming to Cerro 
de Pasco only on a market day. All those vege- 
tables that you see in baskets or in heaps on the 
ground have been brought from distant farms. 
Some of the Indian boys helped by driving loaded 
llamas or donkeys. Some of the Indian mothers 
brought heavy sacks of potatoes on their heads. 


Position 37. 


igG REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

and little girls came bringing also loads as large as 
they could carry. 

Some of the boys and girls that you see here 
now speak only a native Indian language; others 
know also a few Spanish words and phrases — just 
enough to make them able to answer when they are 
spoken to by a white man. They never saw a 
schoolhouse, and a printed book would seem to 
them a great curiosity; they would wonder how in 
the world you could see any meaning in queer little 
crooked black marks sprinkled over a piece of white 
paper ! They do go to church whenever they come 
to town, and they have heard a little about Jesus 
Christ and the Virgin Mary. 

Of course you have noticed the solemn baby 
sitting beside its mother and watching the people 
with big, round eyes. Such babies do not get a 
great deal of petting, though everybody means to 
be kind to them. They eat and sleep, play in the 
dirt and run away and have to be brought home 
by an older sister, just like babies anywhere else. 
The older sisters begin to work while they them- 
selves are still rather little girls, pulling weeds in 
the potato fields, carrying water from some brook 
or spring, and learning to cook. Their mothers do 
not teach them much about washing or sewing or 
cleaning house, for — to tell the truth — even grown- 
up people in this Indian country do not care 
whether things are clean or dirty. 

The boys have rather more fun than their sis- 
ters, for they go about more and see more people; 
some of them have chances to ride on donkeys, as 


Position 37. 


MARKET DAY IN PERU 


197 


well as to drive sheep to pasture. Some have t,o 
work very hard down underground in the silver 
mines, but, since they know nothing about the life 
of boys in other lands, they do not realize how dif- 
ferent their own lot is, and they never think of 
complaining. When they are with friends of their 
own age they get a good deal of fun out of 
games that depend on luck — often foolish games, 
but the best they know. And they like to hear the 
older Indian men tell stories about the great times, 
hundreds of years ago, before any white men came 
to Peru, when Indian chiefs were kings and lived 
in splendid palaces, whose inner walls were deco- 
rated with solid gold and silver. Peruvian princes 
in the old, old times sat on thrones covered with 
gold and silver. They had golden buckles for their 
belts and ate from silver plates. The old stories 
are mainly true. The first Spanish adventurers 
who came to Peru saw such quantities of the pre- 
cious metals that they lost all sense of justice and 
honor, and they robbed the Indians in the most 
cruel way, carrying shiploads of treasure back to 
Spain. They killed the powerful Indian chiefs and 
made men of their own race rulers in the land. 
Today most of the Peruvian Indians have very lit- 
tle energy and no ambition. They are quite con- 
tent to be poor and dirty. They expect nothing 
better. 


Potitlon 27. 


HELPING MOTHER IN PANAMA 


You know, of course, where the new ship canal 
has just been cut through the long, narrow strip 
of country called Panama, between Central Amer- 
ica and South America. A great many Americans 
live in the towns at the two ends of the canal. If 
you were to visit there you would find hot summer 
weather all the year around, but people do a good 
deal of their working and playing just as we do 
in our own home towns. Things are quite different 
if one goes away up into the country, far from 
the canal. Suppose we were to go on board a sail- 
ing vessel at the town of Panama, on the Pacific 
side of the isthmus, and travel for sixty miles or so 
alongside the green shores to where a small river 
opens into the ocean. We might land there and 
get some man who owns a little boat to row us up 
the river. We should see woods and meadows and 
more woods, and once in a while a few houses, 
built quite near together, forming a little village. 
Suppose we land on the river-bank and go up to 
one village street, to see what is going on. 

28, Position in Panama* Pounding rice; native 
life in the interior of the Isthmus 

Not very tidy children, are they? The truth is, 
even grown-up people here do not know how much 
more comfortable it would seem to be clean, so 


HELPING MOTHER IN PANAMA I99 

nobody bothers to do much bathing or houseclean- 
ing or washing of clothes. As for ironing clothes 
— not a soul in this whole village ever saw a flat- 
iron. 

That big wooden bowl, or “ mortar ” was cut by 
one of the men from a log of wood. It is clumsy 
and heavy to move about, but it will stand any 
number of hard knocks without being damaged. 
The father of those children has raised in a wet 
field near here a quantity of rice. It is a plant 
that looks when growing a little like tall grass. 
The grains of rice are its seeds and they grow in 
loose clusters at the' top of tall stalks. Every grain 
of rice has a skin or envelope around it somewhat 
like the skin around a peanut, but more stiff and 
hard. Those children have poured a quantity of 
new rice into the mortar, and now they are pound- 
ing it with those heavy wooden clubs, or “ pestles,” 
to get the nice white grains separated from the 
hulls. When their part of the work is done some- 
body will sift the rice, so that the hulls may be 
thrown away, and then a quantity can be boiled in 
a kettle over an open fire, ready for dinner. 

Nobody here ever has to run to the grocer's on 
an errand, because there are no grocery shops. 
There are no shops of any kind. Once in a long 
time some man in the village may go by boat to a 
larger village down the river, taking a load of ba- 
nanas, and exchange the bananas for cotton cloth 
or gay-colored calico. Once in a while a peddler 
comes from the city of Panama, bringing shoes like 
those which this oldest girl is wearing, needles and 


Potitlon 38. 


200 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

thread, pins, and gay, jingling ear-rings and strings 
of bright-colored beads. That is a great day, for 
everybody wants to see every kind of everything 
the peddler carries, and it takes a great deal of talk- 
ing to decide just how many bananas or cocoanuts 
ought to be paid for a pair of brass ear-rings. The 
talking is done in Spanish — not really correct and 
beautiful Spanish, but a queer mixture of Spanish 
words and Indian words. Nobody here has ever 
seen the words written or printed, for nobody 
knows how to read or write. No mother ever tells 
a boy to hurry, for it is almost half-past eight and 
he must not be late at school. In the first place, 
nobody owns a clock, and, in the second place, there 
is no school. 

No boy here was ever told to go upstairs quietly, 
for there are no stairs. No girl was ever asked 
to set the supper-table, for there are no tables in 
these houses. People sit on the floor around one 
bowl of boiled rice and eat with their fingers, or 
else they pick bananas when they feel hungry, and 
eat wherever they may happen to be. Nobody 
cares to stay in these houses, except at night-time, 
or when it is raining very hard indeed. The floors 
are of dirt, trodden down smooth by many feet; 
the house- walls are strips of bamboo and palm leaf, 
fastened to a few posts and cross beams. Of 
course you could never drive a nail into such a 
wall, but — nobody here has any nails to drive. 
There is no need of even a hook on which to hang 
one’s clothes. These children wear the same 
clothes day and night, until they are quite worn 


Position 28. 


HELPING MOTHER IN PANAMA 


201 


out, and then they begin the same program with 
new clothes. Even the beds are never made up with 
sheets and blankets, like ours. Children sleep on a 
heap of rice straw laid in the corner of a room. 

And yet, even here there are good times for 
everybody. These little folks, half Indian and half 
Spanish, play tag and hide-and-seek. Little girls 
make dolls out of pieces of wood and wrap them 
in bits of rag for clothes. Boys play soldier and 
go swimming in the river, and set traps in the 
woods for wild animals. 

Perhaps you think they themselves are not much 
better than animals. And perhaps you are right. 
But they have never known any better way to 
live. Nobody has ever told them of a better way. 


Position n. 


WHERE CHILDREN AND BANANAS 
GROW IN PORTO RICO 


If you live in a large city, the apples and peaches 
that you eat come from some market or from a 
grocery or from the stand of a fruit dealer. If 
you live in a small town, or out in the country, 
perhaps you have cherry trees and apple trees of 
your own. Not many Americans have ever played 
in a cocoanut grove or in a banana orchard. You 
might get the chance in some parts of Florida, but 
a still better opportunity is in Porto Rico, one of 
the large islands southeast of Florida. Steamships 
from various ports in the United States make regu- 
lar trips to Porto Rico. If you sail from New 
York the voyage takes almost a week. The steamer 
goes first to Cuba and anchors for a day in the 
harbor of Havana ; then it turns eastward and goes 
on past more islands, big and little, till it comes to 
a sheltered bay on the north coast of Porto Rico, 
and there is the city of San Juan. A railway jour- 
ney from San Juan toward the west end of Porto 
Rico would take you through beautiful woods and 
past big fields where sugar-cane grows. Then you 
might leave the railway and ride on still farther in 
a carriage or an automobile, to where five Porto 
Rican sisters live on their father’s farm. 


WHERE CHILDREN AND BANANAS GROW 203 


29, JPosition in Porto Rico, Young banana plants 
at a country home near Mayaguez 

The sunshine is bright and hot and summer 
weather lasts all the year, so these girls never wear 
heavy clothes. If they saw a fur jacket or a 
muff they would wonder what anybody could do 
with such comical things, like the skin of dogs and 
pussy-cats! Unless it is raining hard, there is 
never a day when they cannot play out of doors 
here under the palm trees, and that smallest girl 
goes barefooted nearly all the time. They bring 
their dolls out under the trees, make play-houses 
and visit each other. The big sisters have been 
taught to sew and embroider; when they are a lit- 
tle older they will be able to do very fine and 
beautiful needlework, where some threads are 
drawn out from pieces of linen and other threads 
are made to form beautiful patterns, as fine as 
lace. 

They go to a country school, not far away, but 
the terms are short and the vacations are long. 
Some of their school-books are almost exactly like 
the ones used in your own school ; the pictures are 
the same and the pages are arranged in the same 
way, but the English words have been translated 
into Spanish, so that Porto Rican boys and girls 
who speak only Spanish may be able to use them. 
Some of the teachers can read both Spanish and 
English. 

Those plants with the big, broad leaves will 
grow nearly twice as tall as they are now, and then 


204 real children in many lands 

bear long clusters of blossoms. After a while the 
petals will fall off the blossoms, leaving on each 
flower stalk only hard, green, pod-shaped parts, 
where tiny seeds are forming. As days go by and 
weeks go by, the pod-shaped seed cases will grow 
larger and larger. Their skins will grow strong 
and leathery, and the plant will pack each one fuller 
and fuller of sweet pulp to feed the baby seeds. 
They are what we call bananas. After a while, 
when the pulp inside the tough skins is just soft 
enough, and not too soft, the bananas will be ripe, 
and the father will cut some off for dinner. 

Cocoanuts grow on tall palm trees like those 
with the long, feather-shaped leaves. These girls 
have many a time seen nuts grow from little green- 
ish balls into big brown things larger than their 
own heads. Once in a great while a violent wind, 
blowing through these palm trees, will shake the 
cocoanuts hard enough to make them drop on that 
house-roof, or on the ground, before they are 
wanted. It is quite exciting, as you can imagine, to 
see a big, heavy cocoanut go flying through the 
air, like a giant’s baseball. 

Porto Rican boys play baseball and sometimes 
football, too. Many boys have bicycles, and go 
spinning over the country roads. Those who live 
near the seashore go bathing in the ocean surf, and 
others know creeks near home where the swimming 
is good. Some boys are planning to have farms 
of their own when they grow up and raise bananas 
and cocoanuts and pineapples. Others would like 
to manage sugar plantations. The best sugar plan- 


Poattion 29. 


WHERE CHILDREN AND BANANAS GROW 20 $ 


tations are nowadays oftener managed by Ameri- 
cans who have come from the United States, but 
Porto Ricans are learning about up-to-date ma- 
chinery, and about the best methods of cutting the 
cane and of grinding and pressing out the sweet 
juice from which sugar and molasses are to be 
made. 

Your geographies tell you that this land of 
Porto Rico belongs to the United States. Offi- 
cers appointed by our government plan laws for the 
country. They arrange for conveniences like 
bringing mail to the postoffice, where the father 
of these girls gets his letters. They give directions 
about lighting and cleaning the streets in Porto 
Rican towns. Porto Rican fathers do not help 
vote for our President, but very likely that may 
be agreed on by the time the boys of today are 
grown men. Then, though their homes are so 
far away from ours, they, too, will be Americans. 


Position 29. 


OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBORS IN 
MEXICO 


Your family at home has “ next-door neigh- 
bors — ^the people who live in the houses nearest to 
your own on both sides. So our big family, made 
up of all the Americans in the United States, has 
next-door neighbors — the people who live in the 
countries beside ours. Canadians on the north side, 
Mexicans on the south side, live “ next door.’* 

But Mexicans do a good many things in ways 
that are quite different from our own ways. Let 
us pay a visit and see for ourselves. Your map of 
Mexico is sure to show where the city of Vera 
Cruz stands beside the waters of the Gulf. Steam- 
ships sailing to Mexico from Galveston or New 
Orleans or New York usually land freight and pas- 
sengers at Vera Cruz. You could board a railway 
train, near the steamship wharf, and a ride of sixty 
miles up-country toward the mountains would take 
you to Jalapa. It is a large town, with twenty 
thousand people, and there are good public school- 
houses for the boys and girls. Then there are pri- 
vate schools, too, where only a few children sit in 
one room. 

No, it is not exactly a “ room,” for it has no 
roof. Mexicans call such a place a patio. Look, 
and see it for yourself. 


OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBORS IN MEXICO 207 


30, Position in Meodco, Flowers , birds and little 
folks at a primary school. Jalapa 

This is the patio of the house. There are rooms 
all around it, but only a narrow space at the edge 
of the patio is roofed. You can see that the sun 
shines directly in from the open sky overhead. 
When the weather is rainy, people move the chairs 
somewhere else, and if they are anxious not to get 
wet they keep under the protecting edge of the roof. 

All the books these little folks use are printed in 
Spanish, and the teachers talk Spanish when they 
are explaining a new kind of number work, or any 
other lesson. Spanish words have almost always 
a pretty sound, and possibly it may be more natural 
to be polite in Spanish than in English. Certainly 
the pupils in a school like this are sure to have such 
good manners that no father or mother would ever 
need to be anxious or ashamed about their be- 
havior. Any child who has some candy offers some 
to all the rest, and nobody forgets to say ** Thank 
you.*' If some day that boy who now stands with 
his hands behind him were to be out riding on his 
pony, and you should tell him what a beauty the 
pony is, he would probably say in his v^ry best 
Spanish, ** It is yours,’^ or ‘‘ It is wholly at your 
service.’’ That is the courteous Mexican way of 
saying he is very glad you like it. And, if you 
knew the proper reply, you would just pat the 
pony and say in Spanish, “Thank you very much; 
but it couldn’t have a better owner than it has 
now ! ” 


2o8 real children in many lands 

When school is over and these children go home, 
the houses to which they go are all somewhat like 
this one. They have most of their rooms on the 
ground floor, and there is usually a patio with flow- 
ers growing in it. The nicest houses have lovely 
gardens in the patio, with roses and climbing vines. 
It is always warm here. In good weather people 
have the dinner-table set in some pleasantly shaded 
place at the side of the patio, so that the meal is 
eaten out of doors. Mexican mothers plan to have 
eggs cooked often in various ways. Everybody 
here likes chicken, sweet corn, tomatoes and hot 
peppers and onions. A great many kinds of fruit 
can be bought at Mexican markets; the strawber- 
ries are as delicious as you ever ate anywhere. 

A good many windows have no glass, because 
it is pleasant to let the air blow freely through the 
rooms, but a gate made of slender iron bars can 
be fastened over a window-frame to prevent babies 
from falling out and thieves from climbing in. If 
you look through the door beyond that tall white 
post, you can see one such gate, with upright 
bars, over the window at the farther side of the 
room. 

Children like these, who come from comfortable 
homes, have plenty of good times. Their birth- 
days are remembered with presents and little feasts. 
Their saints’ days are celebrated, too. Most Mexi- 
can boys and girls have several names — some have 
three or four names, and at least one name is quite 
sure to be that of a saint; that is, of some good 
man or woman who lived and worked on earth 


PMltloa 10. 


OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBORS IN MEXICO 209 

long ago, and is now living and working in heaven. 
When the birthday of any saint comes around, the 
boys or girls named for that saint have some spe- 
cial part in the day's celebration. Perhaps they 
carry flowers to the church. Perhaps they fill 
flower vases at home and light a candle in the best 
silver candlestick to show that they remember the 
good soul for whom they were named. 

On Christmas day everybody goes to church. 
Instead of having a tree, each church has a repre- 
sentation of the baby Jesus lying in a nest of straw, 
with little animals, that look quite real, placed as 
if they were oxen and sheep, in a stable; and often 
there are little angels with wings near Mary, the 
Mother. Every child wants to see the ‘‘ Nativity " 
in his church and hopes it will be the most beautiful 
one in town. 

Presents are given on New Year’s day, or some- 
times a few days later than that. Then the chil- 
dren have all sorts of toys and candies, just as you 
do on the twenty-fifth of December. 

Some of the jolliest fun of the whole year comes 
in the latter part of the winter, just before the be- 
ginning of Lent. They call it Carnival Time. All 
sorts of funny processions go through the city 
streets. People go about in gay costumes, wearing 
masks over their faces, and play jokes on each 
other. Nobody gets angry. One knows that if he 
cannot take a joke he will have to stay in the house 
and lose all the fun. Mothers and little girls sit in 
balconies on the fronts of their houses and throw 
flowers or confetti at the people who go by, and try 


14 


Position JO. 


210 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


to guess which of the funny looking people are their 
friends. 

Of course, there are boys and girls in Mexico 
who do not have good clothes and pretty homes 
and plenty of nice things to eat. The Mexican 
poor are very poor, indeed, and have a very hard 
time. Many a boy has to go to work in a mill or a 
mine before he is old enough for our fifth grade, 
and never has a chance to learn how to do really 
well-paid work. Many a girl never in her life has 
quite as much to eat as she really wants. Some 
Mexican homes are so dirty and forlorn you would 
think them hardly good enough for your favorite 
dog. If some time you go to Mexico to see what 
the land is like, you will find it beautiful with 
mountains and rivers and green valleys. You will 
find some of the cities gay and pleasant. But you 
will probably come back from the next-door neigh- 
bors’ country saying to yourself, as the old song 
says, “ There’s no place like home.” 


Position 30. 


IN A CANADIAN VILLAGE 


We surely ought to know the children of Canada, 
for they are our nearest neighbors. Canada is the 
country next to us at the north. Any map of that 
part of North America will show the St. Lawrence 
river flowing through eastern Canada to the great 
gulf of St. Lawrence, and will mark the place 
where the city of Quebec stands on the north bank 
of the river. Two or three miles east of Quebec, 
on the same side of the St. Lawrence, is a country 
town called Beauport. Almost all the Beauport 
houses are on one long street. We will take our 
stand on a board walk beside the road, where a 
number of little neighbors have come out to play. 

31* Position in Canada, Cosy Canadian homes 
that delight an artist’s eye; Beauport road 

All these boys and girls live in homes on this 
street; some of them may have come from that 
house across the way with the out-of-door stair- 
case leading to the second-story rooms, and the 
narrow piazza or “ galerie ” along the front. The 
windows do not slide up and down, like ours, but 
are hung in two parts, like a couple of little doors, 
parting in the middle. You can see how the two 
sashes of that nearest open window swing inside 
the room to let in fresh air. Some houses are built 


212 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

of stone or brick and some of wood. Nearly all 
have whitewashed walls. If you were to go in- 
doors, you would see a very clever way of keeping 
the family sitting-room warm in winter time. Al- 
most every father along this street had the parti- 
tion wall between kitchen and sitting-room built 
with an opening like a very low, broad door, and 
the cooking stove is set in that opening, so that it 
stands partly in one room and partly in the other, 
warming both. It is very cosy and comfortable, 
but, until one is used to the custom, it seems very 
funny to have to go into the kitchen in order to 
put more wood on the sitting-room fire! 

In this part of Canada most of the people speak 
French, though in Western Canada nearly every- 
body speaks English just as we do. All these boys 
and girls have French names; there are a great 
many Victors and Jeans, Maries and Ad^es. Some- 
times a French name is spelled just as we spell it, 
but pronounced differently: If Beaufort mothers 
want to speak to a Charles they say Sharrrl. If 
they are calling an Alice to come home to supper 
they cry Ah-leeeece! And probably they add 
viens, vite; that is, come quick ! ” 

Those horses have French names of their own, 
and, of course, their drivers talk to them in French. 
Naturally all the boys learn the things to say to 
horses; boys learn that everywhere. If one of 
them is driving a play-horse, like this little fellow 
with the two-wheeled cart, you may be sure he 
often shouts, Marche done (“Get up,” or “Go 
along”), just as he has heard the farmers shout 


Pofltion 31. 


IN A CANADIAN VILLAGE 


213 


when they are driving along this road on their way 
to market. 

Market day is great fun in a town like Beauport. 
There are a few small shops where one may go any 
day for things like kerosene or soap, sugar or shoe- 
strings, but on one day each week farmers come to 
town with quantities of chickens and eggs, butter, 
cheese, vegetables, and fruits; people come also 
with a stock of shoes and hats, skirts and blouses 
and ready-made dresses, sharp jack-knives, gay 
hair ribbons, shining new tinware for the kitchen 
and fancy flower vases for the parlor table — all 
sorts of things that boys and girls like to see. 
Sometimes an old Indian woman comes, bringing 
baskets that she and her daughters have woven out 
of willow twigs, or of sweet smelling grass. Every- 
body goes to market, partly to buy, partly just to 
look, and partly to meet the neighbors and have a 
talk. 

In early springtime, before the snow has all 
melted, certain kinds of maple trees that grow near 
Beauport are interesting. These boys and girls 
could tell you what fun it is to visit a maple or- 
chard and see how the farmers cut openings in the 
tree trunks, so that the juice or sap of the trees may 
be drawn off into buckets. It runs slowly, some- 
times only a drop at a time, and it looks like water ; 
but, when a bucketful of sap has been boiled and 
boiled and boiled over a hot fire, it grows thicker 
and darker in color, until after a while it is the 
most delicious maple syrup you ever tasted. And 
then, if it is boiled still longer, and stirred and 


Positioii 21. 


214 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

Stirred and stirred, it turns into maple sugar. 
These children know very well how jolly it is to 
scrape up a panful of snow and have a big spoon- 
ful of the thick, hot syrup dropped on the snow. 
As it cools it makes a delicious, brittle candy. 
Sometimes the bigger girls at home make a kind 
of maple fudge by cooking cream and maple sugar 
together and stirring in nut-meats. They call it 
Sucre a la creme, and you needn’t ask for anything 
better in the shape of candy. 

There are public schools in Beauport, and most 
of the children go there. Some girls walk every 
day down to a big Catholic convent farther along 
this street, where nuns in black dresses and white 
caps are the teachers. At the convent a girl can 
have piano lessons and lessons in singing, as well 
as in ordinary studies; she may learn to draw and 
to paint; almost all girls who are convent pupils 
become able to sew beautifully and many of them 
can do the most dainty embroidery or crochet fine 
lace. 

If one of these boys shows himself particularly 
clever at his lessons in the public school, he may 
be sent afterward to some boarding school where 
he can prepare for college. Even in a little country 
place like this there are chances to earn money 
toward such school expenses. Some boys drive 
cows to pasture in the morning and home at night. 
Some hoe potatoes and weed onions in the neigh- 
bors’ gardens. Some pick blueberries and rasp- 
berries for sale in summer time, and shovel paths 
through the deep snow in midwinter. Then, when 


PMttlon 31. 


IN A CANADIAN VILLAGE 


215 


they are older, they make a start toward learning 
to be lawyers or doctors, civil engineers, or priests, 
or business men. 

Just now none of these young folks are thinking 
much about the years to come; they are more in- 
terested in playing behind that carriage. They 
know some of the games that are favorites among 
your friends at home and they have other games 
of their own, French games that were played long, 
long ago in France by their great-great-great-great- 
great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers. One 
especially nice French game for small folks is called 
Le Pont d' Avignon (Avignon bridge). Boys and 
girls take hold of hands and skip about in a circle, 
singing: 

Sur le pont d' Avignon 
On-y danse, on-y danse; 

Sur le pont d’ Avignon 
Tout le monde danse en ronde. 

Les beaux messieurs font comme qal 
Les belles dames font comme ga! 

Sur le pont d' Avignon 
Tout le monde danse en ronde. 

The words mean: 

“ On the bridge at Avignon 
Everyone goes dancing, dancing; 

On the bridge at Avignon 
Everybody dances. 

Elegant gentlemen do — like — this ! 

Lovely ladies do — like — ^that ! 

On the bridge at Avignon 
Everybody dances/’ 


Pofition 31. 


2i6 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


■F — 1 1 1 

1 1 


“T . 1 1 t 


oi* 



«l W c 









Sut-U^t XAylijYiini ^ 


“1 — M — 


— — — T" 



J J J 

— j-W ■ d — 

J J o 



«ur \e pant c£A\u<^doti toul W monA« 


ITmt 



When they come to the part about ‘‘ elegant gen- 
tlemen ’’ every boy makes a bow, a very deep bow, 
as nice as he can make. When they reach the part 
about ‘‘ lovely ladies ” each girl makes a curtsey — 
the prettiest one she knows. Then they all join 
hands again and dance around as before. 

And before long it will be time for one mother 
to call Lucie! Viens mettre le convert (‘‘Lucy! 
Come set the table’’) or Philippe! Faiit aller 
chercher la vache (“Philip, you’ll have to go hunt 
for the cow ”). 


POfItlOQ 31. 


IN CAMP IN GREENLAND, NEAR 
THE NORTH POLE 


As cold as Greenland/' people say on a winter 
day. Indeed, the cold in that far north country 
is bitter and deadly during the long winter, when 
ice is thick over the Arctic seas and snow lies 
deep over the Arctic lands. But in June the chil- 
dren who live in Greenland have plenty of fun; 
they enjoy their out-of-door life as well as you en- 
joy a long summer vacation in the country. 

Suppose we pay a visit in northern Greenland, 
and see for ourselves what midsummer is like, 
away up near the North Pole. .You will not find 
on your map of the western hemisphere any town 
marked at the spot where you are going visiting. 
There is no town near by. But, if you look for the 
parallel line that marks 8o degrees north latitude, 
and trace it to where it crosses the west coast of 
Greenland, that spot is very near the place where 
you are invited to see some Esquimau children, 
and their home, and their furry dogs. 

32. Position in Greenland, The world^s most 
unique inhabitants— Esquimaux and their tou- 
piks or summer tents 

Other Americans or Europeans have been here 
before us, that is certain. The father of the fam- 


2i8 real children in many lands 

ily is wearing a suit of clothes given to him by a 
member of an exploring party, and he feels very 
fine, dressed in woven woolen stuff such as he 
never owned before. If you look carefully, you 
will see in the distance some white explorers from 
our own land, who have brought the new clothes 
to this far-away country. 

Aren’t the children funny, with their yellowish 
brown faces, their thick shirts and clumsy trous- 
ers? How many children are there? They look 
fat and heavy, but that is partly because their 
home-made clothes are so thick and so queerly 
cut. Boys and girls are dressed so nearly alike in 
this family it is hard to guess which of the chil- 
dren know how to sew (the girls learn to sew) 
and which are learning to harness the dogs and 
to throw sharp spears and to make bows and ar- 
rows (all that is boys’ work). 

Those baggy shirts are made of the skins of 
wild ducks; the trousers are the skins of fawn or 
young deer. The long-legged boots are of seal- 
skin with the hair on the inside; they are like big, 
thick stockings, with soles strong enough for a 
great deal of scrambling over the rocks in summer 
and the ice and snow in winter. 

The mother made them all herself. When the 
skins were taken off the creatures that had worn 
them, they were well scraped and dried to make 
them clean. Then they were rubbed and pulled 
to prevent them from growing hard and stiff. The 
sealskin for the boots she has chewed all over on 
the inner side, a little bit at a time, so as to make 


Position 32. 


IN CAMP IN GREENLAND 


219 


it nice and soft for the children’s feet ! The mother 
has no scissors, but she cut the skins with a bit 
of sharp bone. Then came the sewing. The 
needle was a slender piece of whalebone, cut to 
a point, and the thread was long strings or sinews 
drawn out of the legs of deer that had been killed 
for food. And, when the clothes were all done, 
these children were as pleased and proud as you 
were with the prettiest things you ever wore to a 
party. 

There is no question here of every-day clothes 
or best clothes — things to wear to school or to 
church or going shopping — ^and for a very good 
reason. There are no schools. There are no 
churches. There are no shops. You can see that 
any extra clothes would just be in the way, for 
the house has not a closet nor a cupboard nor a 
trunk nor chest — not even a nail nor a hook for 
hanging a thing up off the floor. 

When that smallest child was a little baby (that 
is, until it was a year or two old), it had no clothes 
at all, but was carried about in a fur pocket inside 
the mother’s waist, where it was all warm and 
cosy. But it is certainly a good deal nicer to have 
clothes of one’s own instead of just staying in 
somebody’s big pocket! 

The mother is that grown-up person who stands 
at the left, behind the two little folks. She wears 
a shirt and trousers of deer-skin much like those 
the children are wearing, and you notice she has 
braided her hair in two braids, one behind each 
ear. She does not look very pretty, but she is 


Position 32 


220 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

fond of the children and works hard and patiently 
for their sake and they think she is the nicest 
mother anybody could wish to have. 

That young woman with the embroidered shirt 
and petticoat is very proud of her own fine clothes 
and is delighted to show them. Ta-koo, she says 
to us ; that means “ Look ! ” See how carefully 
she has stitched patterns all over the skirt, with 
her whalebone needle, and how she has trimmed 
the waist with a fringe of leather cut into narrow 
strips and strung with beads. It is really wonder- 
ful to think that any woman in a place like this 
could do so fine and fanciful a piece of work. She 
knows it, too. That smile on her face means that 
she is enjoying our admiration. Can you see her 
bead bracelet? The beads are made of bits of 
bone, rounded and pierced with holes, and strung 
on a cord of reindeer-sinew like her sewing thread. 

There are the dogs, one wagging a beautiful 
big tail; see, there is even a puppy, trotting around 
on his small legs. I wonder if when he grows up 
he will have a beautiful, bushy tail like the others. 
How many dogs can you see? They are great 
friends of the children. The boys play with them, 
and race with them, and feed them pieces of blub- 
ber or tough, oily flesh from the walruses that 
have been caug^ht along shore. Dogs like these 
are fed not oftener than once a day — in winter 
only once in two or three days, for then food has 
to be used carefully to make it last. 

The dogs always seem hungry, eager to snatch 
and steal anything eatable. I should not wonder 


Po«ltloa 32. 


IN CAMP IN GREENLAND 


221 


if those tin buckets up on the shelf above the tent 
door were set there to keep some sort of food out 
of the dogs’ reach, for sometimes they get so hun- 
gry they even gnaw their own sealskin harnesses, 
unless the collars and straps are carefully put up 
high above the reach of their claws and jaws. 

(By the way, those tin things must also have 
been presents from the exploring white men. 
Very likely they may have been brought by the 
same persons Whom you see over yonder — the 
ones who gave Father Esquimau his fine clothes !) 

Those dogs deserve meals as good as the family 
can afford, for they are the strong and clever crea- 
tures that act as horses in this far north country, 
drawing sledges, with whalebone runners, over 
dreary miles and miles and miles and miles of ice 
and snow. It is a part of their work to go out 
with the hunters and drag home the heavy crea- 
tures that have been killed — bears sometimes, and 
great soft-eyed deer, or furry seals and fat, awk- 
ward walruses. Sometimes the dogs themselves 
help kill an angry bear; they are fearless creatures 
and their own teeth are terribly sharp and strong ! 
They are so tough and hardy they can endure a 
great amount of hard work and bitter cold, and 
so intelligent that they understand almost every 
word these men and boys say to them. 

Could you guess of what that tent is made? 
The poles are pieces of drift-wood found on the 
seashore close by, and the covering is made of 
sealskins sewed together by the women. The 
door looks as if it must have been a part of some 


Position 32. 


222 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

old boat; maybe it was a present from the master 
of a white man’s ship. They call such a man a 
kapitansoak — that means Great Captain.” Poles 
and planks and other large pieces of wood are 
very precious here, for these people need some 
material like wood for a great many different uses, 
but no trees grow to a large size so far north as 
this bare, rocky land where we are now. There 
are ‘‘ pussy willows ” to be found in a few places 
near here, but they grow on slender little stems 
like low bushes or delicate vines — not on trees. 

These children never in all their lives saw a 
real tree as tall as your front door at home! If 
you should try to tell them about great, tall trees 
with green-leafed branches thick overhead, they 
would not have any idea what you mean. Grass 
they see here for a few weeks every summer, fresh 
and green among these ledges; dandelions and 
poppies and other flowers blossom on the sunny 
slopes of those hills. Sometimes butterflies with 
lovely, fluttering wings go sailing through the air 
to alight on the flowers. The children know all 
those things; but trees? They would think you 
were making up a story out of your head! 

The stones laid around the edge of that tent 
hold the leather walls down tight to the ground 
so that the wind may not blow in. It is warm 
now, in summer; a thermometer might mark over 
50 degrees in this bright sunshine; but there will 
be some bleak, cold days before the deep snows 
come and the family move into winter quarters. 

Suppose these people should invite us to din- 


Position 32. 


IN CAMP IN GREENLAND 


223 


iier. As this is midsummer there would probably 
be fish to eat, or possibly a wild duck, shot with 
a stone-tipped arrow from a bow of tough whale- 
bone. It would be cooked over a fire of dried 
moss and grasses and scraps of drift-wood. They 
have no matches with which to start fires, but the 
mother would rub two pieces of dry wood to- 
gether till sparks flew, and then the sparks, falling 
on the dry moss, would grow into flames. It is 
no easy work to build a fire in that way and keep 
it burning well, when one has for fuel only the 
moss and little sticks that these children have 
gathered and brought home. An Esquimau girl 
is very proud when she is able to tend a fire as 
well as her mother does it. People up here do 
not say fire their word is ingyeng. 

Fish and ducks roasted over such a fire do taste 
good when one is living out of doors. No doubt 
the children will say A-tudo more ”) when they 
have finished their share, and the dogs, too, will 
come crowding around, eager to pick the bones. 

You could never guess what strange things 
these children like to eat as you eat candy. The 
mother prepares it for them just as your mother 
sometimes make molasses candy or peppermint 
drops for you. She pulls the thin red skins off the 
legs of the wild birds that the men have shot, and 
fills them full of reindeer fat, so that they look 
like slender sticks of reddish candy. That baby 
in the funny leather trousers thinks there never 
was anything so nice as one of the long red things 
stuffed with tallow. He will suck it for a long 


Poiltion 33. 


224 real children in many lands 

time and enjoy it as much as you enjoy the nicest 
caramels that ever came out of a Christmas stock- 
ing! 

As for Christmas, boys and girls here know 
nothing about it. Either they have no holidays, 
or else they have nothing but holidays — which- 
ever way you choose to put it. Nobody goes to 
school away up here in northern Greenland. 
These boys and girls have no school-books, no 
story-books, no pictures. Not one of this family 
ever learned to read or to write, and they have 
only a vague idea about other parts of the earth 
where people live in queer, big houses of wood 
and stone. Not one of them ever saw a staircase 
in his life, unless possibly they may have had a 
chance to go on board a white man's ship. 

But they know a great deal about some other 
things. Even these children know all about how 
the great whales swim and feed, and how the 
mother seals take care of their furry babies, and 
how the wild ducks talk to each other, and how 
the auks choose their nesting places. How many 
boys in your school could throw a stone to hit a 
mark a hundred feet away? These boys practice 
for hours at a time, till they can hit a mark set up 
for the target. And that is not all. If a boy is 
to be able to cast spears at seals or fishes from a 
little light kayak (canoe) of whalebone and seal- 
skin without upsetting, he must be sure to throw 
^ his spear or stone without moving his body. How 
do you suppose he drills himself in keeping so 
still? He sits on the ground in a stony place like 


Potitlon as. 


IN CAMP IN GREENLAND 


225 


this, and gets one of the other children to pile 
small stones close around him, making a wall up 
as high as his waist. There he stays, all sur- 
rounded by the wall of loose stones, and practices 
shooting or throwing at the mark. Of course, if 
he moves his body much, the stones piled around 
him tumble down. Then another child piles them 
up again and he tries once more, doing it again 
and again, till he can keep quite still, just like a 
grown-up hunter. 

The father has taught these boys to make bows 
and arrows and they are learning to shoot. When 
they are a little older they will go out to hunt 
deer, but now, while they are small, they only play 
at hunting. Their bows are made of wood or of 
pieces of horn tightly spliced and wound with rein- 
deer sinews; their arrows are tipped with sharp 
stones or bits of bone. Sometimes boys take an 
old pair of deer antlers and set them on a stone, 
or in deep snow, and pretend the antlers are a 
live deer. They creep near, hiding behind rocks 
or snow-banks, and crawling on their stomachs 
so that the make-believe deer shall not see them, 
and, when an arrow really does hit the antlers, 
then the deer is supposed to be dead. Most likely 
this puppy is being taught by the boys how to 
drag a load home after the hunt, but puppies are 
a good deal alike the world over, and it will be a 
good while before he has sense enough to do any- 
thing but eat and run about and get in the way 
of people who have real work to do. 

Another thing the boys learn is how to find the 

15 


Position 32. 


226 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

nests of the wild ducks with their fresh-laid eggs, 
and how to make snares out of whalebone and 
reindeer sinews to catch other birds for dinner. 

And the girls? Yes, they have their work, too, 
learning to clean the skins of the animals and birds 
that are brought home, to tend the fires, to get 
the food ready, and to sew and mend and em- 
broider. The housework is simpler than any you 
have ever seen. There are almost no dishes to 
wash, for everybody eats with the fingers. There 
are no beds to make, for people sleep on mats of 
furs and skins, and these are simply shaken once 
in a while. As for dusting, what can you dust 
when there is no floor and no furniture — only 
some skins on the ground and a tent of sealskin 
overhead? And these Esquimau people do not 
feel troubled about washing; they do not own a 
single thing which can be washed (at least they 
did not until the white men came with the present 
of white men’s clothes). Everything they own in 
the way of clothing is made of some sort of fur, 
leather or bird-skin, and they wear it till it 
drops to pieces. Then it is time for a new gar- 
ment. 

In summer time there is no need of lamps here; 
do you know why ? The fact is there are no nights 
in the north Greenland midsummer; for weeks 
at a time the sun stays above this horizon, never 
setting. It is daylight when these people get up in 
the morning and it is daylight when they go to 
bed. All through the weeks and weeks of your 
own long summer vacation it is broad daylight 


Position 32 


IN CAMP IN GREENLAND 


227 


here. In midwinter there are weeks of night-time 
when the sun does not rise at all! 

Only a few years ago a white man came away 
up here to travel about over the ice and snow, and 
to learn more about the land and the people. His 
wife came with him and they built a house of their 
own and lived not very far from here all through 
the long winter. While they were living here, a 
wee, white girl-baby of their own came to live with 
them, and her mother afterwards wrote a book 
about the baby’s queer experiences in this strange 
part of the world. The book is called “ The Snow 
Baby ” and the mother is Mrs. Peary, the brave 
wife of a very famous Arctic explorer. If ever 
you have a chance to read that book, be sure you 
do so; it tells all sorts of interesting things about 
what the people did and about the baby’s strange 
playmates. The Children of the Arctic ” is an- 
other book written by Mrs. Peary and the Snow 
Baby together. The father, Lieutenant Peary, has 
written a book about '' Snowland Folk,” which is 
also full of interesting stories. Still another book 
you will enjoy is The Children of the Cold.” 
That was written by a man named Frederick 
Schwatka, who knows all about Greenland boys 
and girls ; he has traveled all over this queer land, 
and visited families just like these people you see 
here — yes, and eaten whale blubber for dinner! 


Pafftion 32. 


INDIAN NEIGHBORS AT AN 
ARIZONA PUEBLO 

The boys and girls who go to public schools in 
different parts of the United States are Americans 
— yes, indeed! And yet every one of them had 
ancestors who came to this country from some 
other country. But in certain parts of the United 
States there are boys whose great, great, many- 
times great-grandfathers have always lived here. 
Their ancestors owned the land for centuries (no- 
body knows how many centuries) before any white 
men knew there was an American continent on the 
globe. We might see some of those really truly ” 
American boys in various parts of the country, but 
we will choose to make our visit in the northeastern 
part of the State of Arizona. A great deal of the 
ground in that part of the country is sandy desert, 
with only now and then a river valley where trees 
grow. After you leave the railway you have to 
ride for a whole day on horseback or in a wagon 
over broad, sandy levels, and then you come to a 
mesa (hill) with a pueblo (village) of Moki In- 
dians on its summit. 

55 . Position in Arizona, Indians and their 
strange homes beside the Dance Moch at Wolpi 

The black-haired baby is not yet old enough and 
strong enough to run around on his own legs, so 


INDIAN NEIGHBORS AT AN ARIZONA PUEBLO 229 

his mother fixes a sort of pocket for him on her 
back, and he rides about wherever she goes, cuddled 
in a fold of her coarse, stout blanket. She often 
takes him with her when she goes down to one of 
the fields in a gully near by, to hoe corn, or when 
she is fetching water from the village well. He 
never had any playthings. Sometimes he reaches 
for one of those queer long rolls into which mother 
has twisted her hair, but if he pulls it very hard she 
takes it out of his little brown fists, and then there 
is nothing to do except to watch what is going on. 

The Moki boys who are playing up there on the 
second story of the house are free all day long to go 
about as they please. One thing they especially en- 
joy is running foot races. Each boy hopes to be 
the swiftest runner in the whole village when he is 
grown up, and the only way to manage that is to 
practice long and often. Sometimes boys tramp far 
out over the desert to some place in a river bed 
where trees grow, and cut strong, straight branches 
for making bows and arrows. Wood has to be dried 
exactly right in order to keep its toughness. Then 
the long piece for the bow has to be bent into a curve 
and held in shape by fastening a stout cord from 
one end to the other. The arrows also have to be 
carefully shaped with a sharp point at one end and 
a perfectly straight shaft. Every Indian boy knows 
that a crooked arrow would be no good at all. 

Sometimes they paint their faces with streaks of 
mud, and practice queer dances such as their fa- 
thers know. Their fathers belong to a secret so- 
ciety, and most of the lodge meetings are held 


Position 38. 


230 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

in a big underground room; but at certain times of 
year there are special ceremonies out here on this 
village street, when nearly all the grown-up men 
have wonderful things to do. These boys have 
watched the performances, and they are eager for 
the time to come when they will be old enough to 
share in the honors. 

The chief ceremony is the Snake Dance, which is 
held every other year here at Wolpi. On alternate 
years it is held at another Indian town not far 
away. It comes in August. At that time the sun 
has been shining for weeks without any rain, and the 
corn and the wheat, the beans and squashes in the 
fields, are needing water and needing it badly. All 
these Indians believe that rain clouds are sent by 
invisible Spirits, and that the Spirits may hold back 
the rain if they feel angry or sulky. It is necessary 
to do something to please the Rain Spirits, and to 
beg them to be so kind as to send water for the 
gardens. 

The men meet in the kiwa, or underground lodge 
room, and their leader tells them what to do. First, 
men who are particularly swift runners go off to 
different spots, miles away, carrying sacred sticks to 
lay in holy places about which the Rain Spirits are 
supposed to know. Then other men go off for miles 
and miles, searching for live snakes. The kind they 
are most anxious to find are rattlesnakes, which 
make a curious, clicking noise with the bones in the 
ends of their tails, just before they bite. White peo- 
ple are afraid of the horrid things, but the men of 
Wolpi have a way of catching the squirming crea- 


Potltion|33. 


INDIAN NEIGHBORS AT AN ARIZONA PUEBLO 23! 

tures without being hurt. They bring the snakes in 
alive, and put them in big earthen jars in the kiwa, 
and the men sing queer hymns and chant prayers in 
the secret lodge room. 

Then comes a day when these boys see a great 
show. All the people come to this part of the vil- 
lage, for there is a large, open space beyond that tall 
rock, giving room for everybody. The men come 
out into the public square, each one holding a live 
snake with his teeth, and they dance around and 
around the square before this tall rock, while the 
priest, or leader of the lodge, chants more prayers, 
and the snakes sway and squirm and try to wriggle 
themselves free. Then the priest pours sacred meal 
on the ground in such a way that it makes a circle, 
and each dancer throws his snake down inside the 
circle. You would think the creatures would go 
wriggling away in all directions the moment they 
are free, but no; they stay inside the magic mark! 

Then, after all the dancing and chanting are 
over, the snakes are picked up again and each one 
is carried far away from the village and allowed to 
go free. And these boys are told that the snakes 
carry the prayers of the priest and the dancers back 
to the Spirits of the Rain, begging that clouds may 
blow over the blue sky and that water may fall on 
the thirsty ground. 

Little girls in Wolpi sometimes play at building 
houses, but it is not easy to make houses like their 
own homes. If you look carefully at the queer 
mud-colored buildings before us you will see that 
they have three stories. The lower story has a thick 


Position 33. 


232 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

wall made of stones and blocks of hard-dried mud, 
but no windows and no doors. When you want to 
go into the house you climb one of those pole ladders 
till you come to the second story. Then, if you 
wish to lock the door ” so nobody else may follow, 
you pull the ladder up after you and lay it some- 
where in the second-story room. If you want to go 
up to the next higher story you climb those narrow 
stairs in the outer wall of the house. Still another 
flight of stairs leads up to a flat roof, where corn 
and beans are often spread to dry. 

In winter time big baskets and earthen jars full of 
corn and beans are kept in a room in the lowest 
story, which can be reached through a trap-door. 
When the mother needs more beans for dinner she 
lifts the trap door and goes down a ladder to get 
her supplies in the dark storeroom. 

Indian girls in some of these pueblos begin while 
they are still quite small to learn to make bowls out 
of soft clay. It takes a good deal of practice to 
shape them so well that they are worth the trouble 
of baking the clay into hard earthenware, but you 
can imagine how proud you yourself would be if you 
could make dishes to be used every day at home. 
Girls learn also how to weave baskets out of long, 
tough roots and stout grass. Some girls are taught 
by their mothers to-do weaving so wonderfully fine 
and close that a basket will actually hold water! 
Housekeepers here have very few dishes. When 
Indian grandmothers were little girls they had no 
dishes at all except what they made in the form of 
baskets and clay bowls. Nowadays the mothers 


Position 33. 


INDIAN NEIGHBORS AT AN ARIZONA PUEBLO 233 


here at Wolpi find that white people like to buy their 
baskets, so they earn money in that way, and get a 
few tin and iron cooking dishes from the shop of a 
trader. They buy coarse cotton cloth and calico, 
too, at the “ trading post,” as the shop is called. 
That Indian man probably bought his own clothes 
at the same place, though the women’s heavy woolen 
blankets were made by Indian neighbors out of yarn 
spun from the wool of their own sheep. 

There are schools where these young folks may 
go and study lessons of the same kind as your own, 
learning to read and write, to do number-work 
and draw and sing. But they do not always care 
to go to school, and not many fathers are particu- 
lar to have them go. And yet there have been some 
Indian young folks who wanted to see more of the 
world, and to do finer things than are done in a 
village like this. They have studied hard at the 
village school, and then gone far away to some 
great boarding school for Indians, where they could 
learn still more. Some of them have become teach- 
ers and doctors and Christian clergymen. Some 
are successful farmers, raising big crops of corn 
and herds of sheep. Some of the girls have learned 
to be nurses and take care of sick Indians in hospi- 
tals. Some have written story-books and drawn 
pictures for the books. If they seriously make up 
their minds to do any particular thing, whether it 
is running a race or playing football or some kind 
of work for money, they almost always do it so 
well that it makes people glad to remember they are 
the real, original Americans. 


Position 3J. 


LITTLE NEGROES IN NORTH 
CAROLINA 


You need not think that all the good times 
in the United States come to children with nice 
homes and pretty clothes and heaps of expensive 
Christmas presents. Not at all ! Some of the hap- 
piest Americans in the whole country are jolly lit- 
tle darkies, who never owned a whole suit of clothes, 
and never had ten cents in their lives. There are 
many places where we might find such pickanin- 
nies, but this time we will look for them near the 
border line between North Carolina and South 
Carolina. 

54 . Position in North Carolina, U. S, A. A 
humble but happy negro home, away down 
south in Pixie 

Trees used to grow thickly all over this ground, 
but near this particular spot a small clearing has 
been made by chopping the trees down and pulling 
their long, tough roots out of the soil. Now this 
negro farmer is starting out with his mule to 
plough the ground, ready for planting sweet pota- 
toes, beans and turnips, very likely a patch of cot- 
ton besides. That laughing boy on the mule’s 
back is going to drive the animal, while his father 
holds the plough and guides it, to give the warm 
earth a good stirring. 


LITTLE NEGROES IN NORTH CAROLINA 


235 


Look at the funny wooden wheels of that cart 
which the other boy wants to show us. They must 
be pieces sawed off the end of a log, with holes cut 
through the middle to make a place for the axle. 
It is no end of fun to make a pair of cart wheels 
yourself ! 

The very house these children live in was built 
of logs. If you look closely at that nearest corner 
you can see quite well how the logs were laid and 
fitted together so as to hold fast without tumbling 
down. Sometimes there are narrow spaces be- 
tween the logs in such a wall, so that you can look 
through and see the sky ; there is one such place out 
near the farther end of this cabin, quite close to 
the edge of the roof. The builder of a log cabin 
like this often makes the inside wall tight and 
smooth by pressing soft clay into all the cracks, 
where it sticks and turns hard like plaster. The 
big chimney at the nearer end of the cabin was 
made of stones dug out of the ground. Stuck to- 
gether with clay, they make such a fine chimney 
that the mother can do all her cooking in kettles or 
frying pans over an open fire in the cabin’s chief 
room. There is not much furniture in the home. 
The children do not sit in chairs around a table 
at meal-times. They stand in the doorway or come 
out here and sit on the grass with a piece of corn- 
bread in one hand and a strip of fried bacon in the 
other hand, and eat as they please, without any 
thought of table manners or even of clean hands! 
The plump, good-natured mother has herself never 
thought much about tidy manners. 


Position 34. 


236 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

The children help more or less about the house- 
work or the field work, but nobody works very 
hard. Both boys and girls have plenty of time to 
play. The boys like to go off in the woods with an 
old dog, hunting for “ ’possum.” The little girl 
has an old doll, and she is very fond of the pussy 
now held in her little brown arms. Father can play 
a fiddle. He often plays tunes for the children af- 
ter supper and they all sing. Nobody ever taught 
them, but they have sweet voices, and some way 
they naturally know how to sing in tune and in 
time, just as fishes know how to swim and birds to 
fly. They like a very funny, jolly song, about liv- 
ing away down south in Dixie,” and a hymn that 
says : 

“ Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord, 

Or you can't go to heaven when you die." 

Another hymn they sing over and over is about 
going up to heaven: 

‘‘ Swing low, sweet chariot, 

Coming for to carry me home! 

Swing low, sweet chariot. 

Coming for to carry me home! ” 

There are not always good schools for colored 
children like these; some counties have good col- 
ored teachers and nice, clean, comfortable school- 
houses, while others provide almost nothing. Some 
fathers and mothers care a great deal about having 
little folks go to school and others do not realize 


Pofitiofi 34. 


LITTLE NEGROES IN NORTH CAROLINA 


237 


what a help it would be. It is quite possible that 
this black man and his wife have never themselves 
learned to read or write. Maybe these youngsters 
will grow up in the same happy-go-lucky way, liv- 
ing all their lives in dirt-floored log cabins. But 
if a colored boy or girl really has a good mind, and 
is willing to work hard for an education, there is 
almost always some means of going to one of the 
big boarding schools for negroes, where all sorts of 
useful trades are taught. At one famous school in 
Alabama boys not only study reading and spelling, 
arithmetic and geography, but learn how to make 
bricks and to build brick houses; how to saw lum- 
ber and to do all sorts of carpentry work; how to 
raise cows and pigs and chickens; how to make 
delicious butter and cheese; and how to take the 
best care of a garden. Girls study ordinary lessons 
and learn all about cooking and cleaning; they are 
soon able to make dresses and hats; they can do 
all sorts of mending and fine knitting; they make 
beds and set tables, and they wash and iron in such 
a perfect way that bedclothes and underclothes are 
white and dainty as clothes can be. 

When such a boy or girl comes home for vaca- 
tion, they help make things a great deal nicer for 
the father and mother and for younger brothers 
and sisters. Neighbors, coming in for a visit, say: 
** Yo' house do look mighty fine now you got dat 
new bedroom.’' The father says: ‘^Yes, John 
Henry built it. He done learn a heap to school.” 

Or the mother will say : Be please’ to take a 

chair. George Augustus made dat chair and Rose 


Position 34< 


238 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

Armanda wove de cyarpet (rug) out o’ rags. Ain’t 
it handsome? Yes, sir; my chillun’s gettin’ along 
powerful well. Dey’s good chillun. Dey done 
learn a heap, I tell you! ” 


Pofltloa 34. 


AFTER A SNOW STORM IN NEW 
JERSEY 


There are so many different kinds of good 
times no person could expect to have them all. 
Boys and girls in Burma find gay-colored, sweet- 
smelling flowers in bloom every month in the year. 
Children in the West Indies have oranges and ba- 
nanas and cocoanuts growing around their own 
houses. Maori youngsters in New Zealand can 
go swimming any day in little ponds of warm 
water. Such things sound like made-up stories to 
the young folks in the northern United States, who 
never knew flowers to bloom out of doors in win- 
ter-time, and never saw a cocoanut tree in all their 
lives. But northern children who live in the coun- 
try have plenty of fun that is impossible in a tropi- 
cal climate. 

Suppose, for instance, you are visiting some 
friends in the northern part of the state of New 
Jersey. One morning in January you wake and 
find the ground covered with white snow, while 
more snow, in big flakes, comes falling, falling, fall- 
ing, so thickly you can hardly see across the road. 
All day long the cold, white drifts on the ground 
grow deeper and deeper. If they are so deep that 
children cannot wade through them, there is usually 
no school. A snow-storm day is a fine time to stay 
in the house and make candy over the kitchen fire. 


240 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


Next morning, when the storm is over and the 
snow lies in deep, thick blankets all around the 
house and the barn, then come great times for all 
the boys and girls. First of all, somebody shovels 
the deep snow out of the paths that lead from the 
side door and the back door and the front door. 
Sometimes the boys who do the shoveling just 
throw the loosened snow in heaps at either side of 
the path. Sometimes the snow sticks together in 
big lumps, and they think the lumps would make 
good building blocks. So this is what mother sees 
a few hours later. 

35, Position in New Jersey, The snow fort and 
its gallant defenders 

There are ever so many things you can do with 
new snow, if it is just soft enough and just hard 
enough. Wooden shovels like the one that boy 
holds are very good to work with, but some snow 
shovels are still larger, so that you can dig out a 
bigger block at one time. You pile your blocks and 
lumps of snow one on another and press them to- 
gether to build a wall — not too hard, but just hard 
enough ; then you dig more snow and add that, and 
press it down, so that it will stick firmly to the rest ; 
and before long you find your walls are quite high. 
It takes a deal of skill, as you can well believe, to 
make the snow hold firmly together over an open 
space like the entrance to this fort, but these boys 
have done it in fine style. That little girl inside 
the fort is a prisoner whom the boys have captured, 
and the big dog is a soldier on guard. 


AFTER A SNOW STORM IN NEW JERSEY 24I 

A snow man is even easier to make than a snow 
fort. Have you ever done clay-modeling at your 
school, squeezing and pressing and patting the soft 
mass into shape? Then you know how one goes 
to work with soft snow. It is often easy to make 
a snow man stand with his arms akimbo, fists rest- 
ing on his hips. Little black sticks answer for eyes. 
There is almost always an old hat out in the barn 
which can be set on the back of his head, to make 
him look as if he were enjoying his share of the 
sport. 

Dogs enjoy all this winter fun almost as well as 
the children do. Some dogs act as if they feel very 
proud and fine when they are harnessed to a sled 
as a horse is harnessed to a wagon. It is larks for 
the children, too, when they take turns at riding. 
But dogs make rather slow horses. The best fun 
you can have with a sled is on a long hill, where 
the snow is trodden down quite smooth and hard. 
You drag your sled to the top of the hill and then 
make ready for a flying trip to the bottom. Girls 
usually sit on their sleds as that boy is sitting now. 
Boys oftener give a sled a push, drop on their stom- 
achs, and shoot down the hill head-first. Hi-yi 
there I Clear the track ! ’’ The sled goes whizzing 
over the white path like a speeding automobile! 

Double-runners or bob-sleds are fine, too. A 
couple of sleds are set, one behind the other, three 
or four — maybe six or seven — feet apart, with the 
two ends of a stout plank fastened securely to the 
two sleds. One boy sits in front to steer, and other 


16 


Position 35. 


242 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

boys and girls pack themselves closely together on 
the plank seat, one behind another. 

The last one gives the load a push, and then 
jumps on the rear end just as it starts. Off they 
go! Hurrah! A bob-sled with a dozen children 
on it is so much heavier than a single sled that it 
goes even faster and farther down a long hill. Once 
in a while it may run off the road and spill every- 
body in a heap; but if it is at a place with plenty 
of soft snow the tumble does not hurt any more 
than falling into a mass of feather pillows; no- 
body ever makes a fuss about it. You just pick 
yourself up, and shake the loose snow out of your 
clothes, and climb to the top of the hill to try it 
over again. 

If there is a pond or a river near home, every- 
body wants to go skating. With a polished steel 
runner fastened to each shoe-sole, and a big sheet 
of smooth ice under your feet, you can move about 
in long, swift, straight lines, or sweeping curves, 
almost as a bird (or an aviator) flies through the 
air. Of course you cannot do it perfectly the first 
time you try. Feet shod with skates haVe a funny 
way of sliding out from under you and letting you 
down with a bang on the ice. You may fail and 
pick yourself up a dozen times in a dozen minutes 
while you are learning, but a few black-and-blue 
spots never did a boy or girl any harm. Nobody 
minds a fall. You just keep on trying, and very 
soon you have found out for yourself how to stand 
and how to lean this way or that way. Then you 
can give all your mind to learning speed, and 


Position J5. 


AFTER A SNOW STORM IN NEW JERSEY 243 

learning how to make sudden curves to this side or 
to that side, so that you may be able to dodge when 
skaters are playing tag. 

And how hungry boys and girls can be, when 
they have spent a whole forenoon building snow 
forts and a whole afternoon coasting down hill or 
skating on the pond ! '' Hungry as a bear ” every- 
body goes home at last. And never did anything 
smell so good as the warm supper that is all ready. 


Position 35. 


WHEN WARM WEATHER COMES 
TO NEW YORK 


The largest city in the western half of the 
world is a crowded, noisy place. It has miles 
and miles and miles of streets where immensely 
tall buildings, full of shops or offices or fac- 
tories, stand all along both sides of narrow 
roadways. It has miles and miles and miles 
of streets where people live in huge houses 
closely packed together. Some houses are as splen- 
did as palaces in a fairy story; some are forlornly 
shabby and miserable ; some homes are neither very 
grand nor very poor, but just happy, comfortable 
places where boys and girls study their lessons and 
have their fun like other citizens all over the Uni- 
ted States. And New York has room, not only 
for all its closely built streets, but also for pleasant 
green parks and playgrounds. No matter in what 
part of the city boys and girls may live, they are 
never very far from some spot where there are 
shady trees and where there is room to play in the 
open air. If you want to know how city children 
have some of the best of all their good times,’' 
you should visit one of those public parks in New 
York on a pleasant spring Saturday. 


WHEN WARM WEATHER COMES TO NEW YORK 245 


36, Position in the United States. Dancing around 
the May~j)ole at a school festival in one of 
New Yorh City^s public parhs 

On almost any holiday when the weather is fine 
you would find children at play here, though not 
always as many as you see just now. This is a 
special festival, planned beforehand. Hundreds 
and hundreds of boys and girls are here today, and 
a good many teachers and fathers and mothers 
have come to look on at their games and dances. 
At this moment there are not many boys in sight, 
but you may be sure they are not far away, having 
their full share of fun. Foot races, running high 
jumps, and “ stunts ” of that sort are their delight, 
and many boys have made fine records in athletics. 
Some fellows go to schools where there are gym- 
nasiums, with teachers ready to advise and to 
coach; some are enthusiastic members of gymna- 
sium classes at branches of the Y. M. C. A. ; others 
find a chance for the same kind of drill at ‘‘ settle- 
ments or neighborhood club houses near their 
homes. It goes without saying that almost every 
boy in any school knows baseball, and either plays 
or roots for the players whenever a game is 
going on. 

There are still a few parts of New York where 
children have homes like those in smaller cities and 
towns — separate houses with shady porches and 
flower gardens, and ground enough to keep chick- 
ens or rabbits or other pets. But most of these 
children whom we see now live on streets where 


246 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

the brick or stone houses are large and high, set 
close to the paved sidewalks and close to each other, 
without any garden space at all. If you went to 
visit one of these romping girls you might find her 
family living in three or four rooms on the fourth 
floor of a big tenement house, with other families 
on the floors above and below. All the families 
use the same narrow stairways in such a house, and 
on washing days mothers go up on the roof to hang 
their clothes to dry. The streets on which tene- 
ment houses stand are usually crowded and noisy. 
Street cars go back and forth with motormen 
sounding the gongs. Automobiles honk as they 
dash by. Wagons and drays make continual clat- 
ter. Very often an elevated railway, its tracks sup- 
ported high in the air on stout iron posts, sends 
long trains of passenger cars roaring past a fam- 
ily’s second or third story windows. 

Other girls — perhaps girls in the same class at 
school — live in larger and nicer buildings, called 
apartment houses, where there may be space for 
several homes on each floor, with separate front 
doors opening into the same public hallway. Some 
such houses have five, six, seven, maybe a dozen 
stories, and you can imagine what a piece of work 
it would be to go back and climb eleven flights of 
stairs whenever you found you had forgotten your 
geography or your warm winter gloves! Those 
finer, larger houses have elevators (lifts) that carry 
you from the street level to the topmost floor and 
back again in a minute. There are a good many 
pleasant things about living in a city apartment. 




WHEN WARM WEATHER COMES TO NEW YORK 247 


especially if your home is on one of the upper- 
most floors, so that fresh air may have a chance to 
enter all the rooms ; but a girl who has always lived 
in such a home never has a chance to go down 
cellar ” or “ up in the garret,” because her home 
has neither cellar nor garret. And she cannot in- 
vite another girl to play in her yard,” because she 
hasn’t any yard! So visiting friends often play 
either indoors, on the doorsteps, or on the sidewalk 
out in front of the house. 

You can play a great many games on roomy 
doorsteps ; they make a fairly good place for dress- 
ing dolls or making dolls’ clothes, and you can play 
sitting-down games like Button-button and Twenty 
Questions. You can read story-books. If there 
are not too many people passing along the side- 
walk, you can play tag there, and race on roller- 
skates, but having too many people in the way 
spoils a game of tag, and grown-up folks are likely 
to complain if racing skaters run into them; so the 
choice of sidewalk games is limited. 

During the long summer vacation it is often hot 
— oh, so hot, in the streets where these girls live! 
Long hours of sunshine make every brick wall, 
every sidewalk and every stone doorstep warm to 
the touch. Some boys and girls can go out of town 
for long visits in the country or at the seashore. 
Others spend whole days in this park and parks like 
it, or go away for day excursions, coming home at 
night. You can easily see by looking at any school 
geography that New York has plenty of water near 
by. Rivers flow past the crowded city on their way 


PMltlMI 36 . 


248 REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 

to the harbor, and boys go swimming at places 
where there are no steamships coming and going. 
At several points along the riversides, piers have 
been built so that they project out over the current, 
on purpose for playgrounds. Roofs shield them 
from the hot sun, making them fine airy places 
where little folks can play, and where big girls can 
safely take baby sisters and brothers. 

New York harbor, where the river waters meet 
the sea, is a beautiful place; big islands and little 
ones provide a great many fine, sandy beaches, 
where the ocean waves roll in and roll out, break- 
ing into cool white foam as they meet the shore. 
Any pleasant day in midsummer you would find 
troops of boys and girls at the beaches, sometimes 
with their mothers, sometimes with a teacher or 
with the director of a club, to make sure that no- 
body gets lost, and that no accidents happen. Chil- 
dren wade in the water, go in swimming, play 
games on the sand, ride merry-go-rounds, and see 
all sorts of amusing picture shows. They buy 
candy and pop-corn, peanuts and fruit and ice- 
cream. Then, at supper time, when all the air is 
cooler, they come back to the city. Some come in 
steamers, some in ferry boats ; some reach home in 
elevated railway trains, and some in underground 
trains, that run through long tunnels beneath the 
streets. In the evening their own home streets are 
brightly lighted; people are sitting at all the open 
windows and on all the front steps. Hurdy-gur- 
dies are playing. Everybody who owns a grapho- 
phone or a victrola sets some song going, and as 


Petitloii 36. 


WHEN WARM WEATHER COMES TO NEW YORK 249 


one walks down the street he hears first a bit of 
one piece of music, then a bit of another, then may- 
be two or three at once. It is confusing, but it cer- 
tainly is funny and gay. 

The girls whom we have seen dancing in the 
park are skipping about so fast that we can hardly 
see their faces. They have black hair, brown hair, 
auburn, red, golden and flaxen. They are rosy- 
cheeked and pale-cheeked. Some have dark eyes 
like the girls of Italy, some blue like little maids 
in Sweden, some of real Irish gray with long lashes. 
New York school girls have, in fact, all kinds of 
faces and all kinds of names, and for a very good 
reason. Their fathers and mothers (or perhaps 
their great-great-grandfathers and great-great- 
grandmothers) came to America from many dif- 
ferent lands across the sea. Perhaps Catherine 
speaks German to her grandmother at home, because 
grandmother is too old to care about learning Eng- 
lish. Perhaps Yetta’s Jewish father, who works 
very hard for a living, knows only Yiddish; the 
little daughter and her brother David, who do have 
a fine chance to learn at school, help father in the 
evening. They show him what they have learned 
in the arithmetic class about keeping accounts and 
making out bills. And pretty Maria, whose Sicilian 
people at home speak only Italian, can chatter as 
fast in one language as in the other. She teaches 
her mother the English names for things needed 
in housekeeping, so that mother may become able 
to go shopping without any difficulty in asking for 
whatever is wanted. 


Pofitiofl 36* 


250 


REAL CHILDREN IN MANY LANDS 


Besides all the boys and girls from other coun- 
tries, whose people have lately come to live in Amer- 
ica, there are thousands and thousands more whose 
people have always spoken English, and whose an- 
cestors have lived so long in America that they 
have had a chance to help make the nation what 
it is now. Many a New York boy is proud to 
know that men of his own name long ago helped 
fight in the Revolution to make the country inde- 
pendent, or helped fight in the great Civil War. It 
is pleasant to know that your very own people have 
proved their patriotism and their courage. But 
everybody’s father and everybody’s mother — even 
the ones who came to America only last year — 
have also a chance to help make the United States 
a safer place in which to live, a cleaner place in 
which to work, a happier place in which to play. 


Pofltloaatf. 


^UNDERWOOD^ 
STEREOSCOPIC TOURS 


The scenes comprising these Tours are carefully selected by persons of wide 
experience and liberal education. Patrons get the best satisfaction from the 
Tours by taking them as arranged. One hundred stereographed places of one 
country, systematically arranged, are generally foimd much more desirable than 
the same number of scenes scattered over several countries. Many patrons 
are placing all these Tours in the libraries of their homes. Schools and public 
libraries are turning more and more to the stereoscope to put students and 
readers in touch with the actual places of which they are studying. 

Guide Books are now ready for a considerable number of the Tours, as will 
be seen by referring to the following list. Patent Locating Maps, by which 
each scene is definitely located, go with these books. Each Guide Book is 
written by a well-known author, thoroughly conversant with the country, city, 
or locality which the Tour covers; the writer assumes the role of a personal 
guide, standing by the side of the traveler on the spot. 

The Tours are supplied in convenient Volume Cases (shaped like books) or 
in Extension Cabinets. 

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND TOUR— Giving 100 positions. 
AUSTRIA TOUR — Giving 84 positions. 

BELGIUM TOUR — Giving 24 positions, with explanatory notes.* 

BURMA TOUR — Giving 50 positions. 

CANADA TOUR — Giving 72 positions, with explanatory notes.* 

CEYLON TOUR — Giving 30 positions, with explanatory notes.* 
CHILDREN’S TOUR — Giving 36 positions (‘‘Real Children in Many Lands”) 
— ^with guide book by M. S. Emery, 222 pages, cloth. 

CHINA TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with guide book by Prof. James Rical- 
ton, 358 pages, cloth, and eight Underwood patent locating maps. 
COLORADO TOUR — Giving 50 positions. 

CUBA AND PORTO RICO TOUR— Giving 100 positions. 

DENMARK TOUR — Giving 36 positions. 

ECUADOR TOUR — Giving 42 positions. 

EGYPT TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes,* guide book 
by James H. Breasted, Ph.D., 360 pages, cloth, and twenty Underwood 
patent locating maps. 

ENGLAND TOUR — Giving 100 positions.* 

FRANCE TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes.* 
GERMANY TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes.* 

• These explanatory notes are printed on the backs of the stereograph cards. 

251 


GREECE TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with guide book by Rufus B. Richard 
son, Ph.D., 363 pages, cloth, and fifteen Underwood patent locating maps. 

HOLLAND TOUR — Giving 24 positions, with explanatory notes.* 

INDIA TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes,* guide book by 
Prof. James Ricalton, 383 pages, cloth, and ten Underwood patent locating 
maps. 

IRELAND TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes,* guide book 
by Charles Johnston, 262 pages, cloth, and seven Underwood patent locat- 
ing maps. 

ITALY TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with guide book by D. J. Ellison, D.D., 
and Prof. James C. Egbert, Jr., Ph.D., 600 pages, cloth, and ten Under- 
wood patent locating maps. 

JAMAICA TOUR — Giving 24 positions. 

JAPAN TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes.* 

JAVA TOUR — Giving 36 positions. 

KOREA TOUR — Giving 48 positions. 

MANCHURIA TOUR — Giving 18 positions. 

MEXICO TOUR — Giving 100 positions. 

NORWAY TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes,* guide book 
edited by Prof. Julius E. Olson, with an introduction by Hon. Knute Nel- 
son, 372 pages, cloth, with eight Underwood patent locating maps. 

PALESTINE TOUR — Giving 100 positions (the Holy Land), with guide book 
by Rev. Jesse L. Hurlbut, D.D., 220 pages, cloth, and seven Underwood 
patent locating maps. 

PALESTINE TOUR No. 2. — Giving 139 positions, comprising Palestine Tour 
No. 1, Travel Lessons on the Life of Jesus, and Travel Lessons on the Old 
Testament (all duplicates omitted) with three Books. 

PANAMA TOUR — Giving 36 positions, with explanatory notes.* 

PERU TOUR — Giving 60 positions. 

PHILIPPINE AND HAWAII TOUR— Giving 100 positions. 

PILGRIMAGE TO SEE THE HOLY FATHER — Giving 36 positions, with 
explanatory notes,* guide book by Rev. Father John Talbot Smith, LL.D., 
148 pages, cloth, and two Underwood patent locating maps. 

PORTUGAL TOUR — Giving 60 positions. 

PRESIDENT McKinley tour — G iving 60 positions, with guide book, 183 
pages, cloth. 

ROME TOUR — Giving 46 positions (a part of Italy Tour. Positions 1 to 46) 
— with guide book by D. J. Ellison, D.D., and James C. Egbert, Jr., Ph.D., 
310 pages, cloth, and five Underwood patent locating maps. 

RUSSIA TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with guide book by M. S. Emery, 216 
pages, cloth, and ten Underwood patent locating maps. 

RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR — Giving 100 positions. 

SCOTLAND TOUR — Giving 84 positions, with explanatory notes,* 

SICILY TOUR — Giving 54 positions. 

SPAIN TOUR — Giving 100 positions. 

♦ These explanatory notes are printed on the backs of the stereograph cards. 

252 


ST. PIERRE AND MONT PELEE TOUR — Giving 18 positions, with guide 
book by the celebrated traveler, George Kennan, and three Underwood 
patent locating maps. 

SWEDEN TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes.* 

SWITZERLAND TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with guide book by M. S. 
Emery, 274 pages, cloth, and eleven Underwood patent locating maps. 

“ TRAVEL LESSONS ON THE LIFE OF JESUS ’’—Giving 36 positions, with 
hand book, 230 pages, cloth, by Rev. Wm. Byron Forbush, Ph.D., and 
four Underwood patent locating maps. 

“TRAVEL LESSONS ON THE OLD TESTAMENT ’’-Giving 51 positions, 
with hand book, 211 pages, cloth, by Rev. Wm. Byron Forbush, Ph.D., 
and four Underwood patent locating maps. 

TRIP AROUND THE WORLD — Giving 72 positions, with explanatory notes,* 
guide book and locating map. 

UNITED STATES TOUR — Giving 100 positions, with explanatory notes,* 
guide book and four Underwood patent locating]|map8. 

UNITED STATES TOUR No. 2 — Giving 211 positions, comprising U. S. Tour 
No. 1 and the special tours of Washington, Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, 
Yellowstone and Yosemite (all duplicates omitted), with six books. 

WASHINGTON, D. C., TOUR — Giving 42 positions, with guide book by 
Rufus Rockwell Wilson, 178 pages, cloth, and four Underwood patent 
locating maps. 

In China — 

BOXER UPRISING TOUR — Giving 26 positions, 43-68 of the China Tour, 
with guide book and three Underwood patent locating maps. 

HONG KONG TO CANTON TOUR— Giving 15 positions, 1-15 of the China 
Tour, with guide book and three Underwood patent locating maps. 

PEKIN TOUR — Giving 32 positions, 69-100 of the China Tour, with guide 
book and two Underwood patent locating maps. 

In Egypt 

CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS TOUR — Giving 27 positions — (Positions 
1-27 of Egypt Tour), with explanatory notes.*t 

ELEPHANT SERIES — Giving 12 positions, hunting wild elephants, tame 
elephants at work, etc., with explanatory notes.* 

GETTYSBURG BATTLEFIELD TOUR— Giving 12 positions. 

GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA TOUR — Giving 18 positions, with explana- 
tory notes,* guide book and two Underwood patent locating maps. 

In Greece — 

ATHENS TOUR — Giving 27 positions, 1-27 of Greece Tour, with explana- 
tory notes.*t 

HUNTING SCENES (AMERICAN) ^-Giving 30 positions. 

HUNTING SCENES (EAST AFRICAN)— 42 positions. 

HUNTING ROYAL BENGAL TIGER— 12 positions. 

In India — 

BOMBAY TO CASHMERE TOUR— Giving 27 positions, 1-27 of India Tour, 
with explanatory,;notes.*t 

* These explanatory notes are printed on the backs of the stereograph cards. 

t The guide book for the complete tour is desirable. 

253 


In Ireland — 

QUEENSTOWN, CORK AND DUBLIN TOUR— Giving 36 positiona, 1-36 
of the Ireland Tour, with explanatory note3.*t 

NEW YORK CITY TOUR— Giving 36 positions. 

NIAGARA FALLS TOUR — Giving 18 positions, with explanatory notes,* 
giiide book and two Underwood patent locating maps. 

NIAGARA IN WINTER — Giving 12 positions. 

In Norway — 

HARDANGER AND BERGEN TOUR — Giving 27 positions, 26-62 of Nor- 
way Tour, with explanatory notes.*! 

In Palestine — 

JERUSALEM TOUR — Giving 27 positions, 9-35 of the Palestine Tour, with 
explanatory notes,* guide book and an Underwood patent locating map. 

RUBY MINING TOUR — Giving 9 positions, some of the positions taken from 
the Burma Tour, with explanatory notes.* 

In Russia — 

MOSCOW TOUR — Giving 27 positions, 47-73 of the Russia Tour, with 
guide book and three Underwood patent locating maps. 

ST. PETERSBURG TOUR — Giving 39 positions, 8-46 of the Russia Tour, 
with gtiide book and five Underwood patent locating maps. 

SPANISH BULL FIGHT SERIES — Giving 12 positions. 

In Switzerland — 

BERNESE ALPS TOUR — Giving 27 positions, 17-36 and 47-53 of Switzer- 
land Tour, with guide book and three Underwood patent locating maps, 

ENGADINE TOUR — Giving 8 positions, 39-46 of Switzerland Tour, with 
guide book and four Underwood patent locating maps. 

LAKE LUCERNE TOUR — Giving 11 positions, 6-16 of the Switzerland Tour, 

/ with guide book and three Underwood patent locating maps. 

MONT BLANC TOUR — Giving 23 positions, 78-100 of the Switzerland 
Tour, with guide book and two Underwood patent locating maps. 

ZERMATT AND THE MATTERHORN TOUR — Giving 15 positions, 54-68 
of the Switzerland Tour, with guide book and two Underwood patent 
locating maps. 

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK TOUR — Giving 30 positions, with ex- 
planatory notes,* guide book and an Underwood patent locating map. 

YOSEMITE VALLEY TOUR — Giving 24 positions, with guide book by Charles 
Q. Turner and an Underwood patent locating map. 

NEW TOURS ADDED 

AFRICA TOUR — Giving 100 positions. 

ASIA MINOR TOUR — Giving 48 positions with descriptive book by Prof. 
C. F. Kent, Ph.D. 

BIBLE LANDS — 140 positions to accompany Kent’s “ Biblical Geography and 
History,” with separate book, 96 pages, by Prof. Charles Foster Kent, 
Ph.D. 

BIBLICAL EGYPT AND SINAI — Giving 48 positions with descriptive book 
by Rev. Sartell Prentice, D.D. 

CONSTANTINOPLE TOUR— Giving 48 positions.* 

MESOPOTAMIA TOUR — Giving 84 positions. 

♦ These explanatory notes are printed on the backs of the stereograph cards. 

t The guide book for the complete tour is desirable. 

254 








LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



